Guide to LA FOIP-Chapter 3

Office of the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner. Guide to LA FOIP, Chapter3, Access to Records. Updated 5 May 2023. 45 had not appropriately applied subsection 6(1)(b) of FOIP and the access request was sufficiently clear to enable the ministries to identify the record(s) requested. In Disregard Decision 040-2022, 041-2022, 042-2022, the Commissioner considered an application from the Holy Family Roman Catholic Separate School Division No. 140 (Holy Family) to disregard an applicant’s three access to information requests. Holy Family asserted that the requests were repetitious, systematic, would unreasonably interfere with Holy Family’s operations, were an abuse of the right of access, were frivolous, vexatious and were not made in good faith pursuant to subsections 43.1(2)(a), (b) and (c) of LA FOIP. While considering this application, the Commissioner noted that Holy Family appeared to confuse “clarifying” with “narrowing” and appeared to be forcing the applicant to narrow their access to information requests inappropriately. Holy Family had responded to the applicant’s access to information requests indicating that “the scope of your request remains too large to identify specific records” and requested the applicant narrow the scope. The Commissioner found Holy Family wanted the applicant to narrow the access to information requests because they involved a large volume of records over a two-year period requiring a significant amount of work not because it could not identify records. When its attempts to narrow the access to information requests were unsuccessful, Holy Family should have proceeded to issue an estimate of fees associated with the broad requests. It failed to do so. Rather, it made an application to the Commissioner to have the access to information requests disregarded. Furthermore, the Commissioner found that the access to information requests were described with sufficient particularity by the applicant and Holy Family should have been able to identify the records responsive to the requests. In conclusion, the Commissioner refused Holy Family’s application to disregard the applicant’s access to information requests. In Review Report 160-2020, the Commissioner reviewed a fee estimate issued to an applicant by the Ministry of Government Relations (Government Relations). Upon review, the Commissioner found that Government Relations did not invoke subsection 6(3) of The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIP) appropriately because it attempted to require the applicant to “narrow” their access to information request and that if it did not hear back from the applicant by a certain date, it would consider the access to information request abandoned pursuant to subsection 7.1(1) of FOIP. The Commissioner found that the access to information request, although broad, was clear in terms of what was being sought. The Commissioner recommended that Government Relations develop policy and procedures that highlight the difference between clarifying and narrowing the scope of an access to information request. Furthermore, the Commissioner recommended Government Relations rescind its fee estimate.

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