Office of the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner. A Guide to Submissions. Effective Sept. 2020. Updated Dec. 2022. 8 HIPA is wrong and should be ignored will not assist a party’s position. This legislation was passed by the Legislative Assembly in 1992 (FOIP), 1993 (LA FOIP) and 2003 (HIPA) respectively. The Commissioner’s office is required to interpret the legislation, so representations on particular interpretations of a section or subsection are extremely relevant. Citing Court of King’s Bench for Saskatchewan or Saskatchewan Court of Appeal cases that offer some interpretation of FOIP, LA FOIP or HIPA, is very persuasive. Citing decisions of other Information and Privacy Commissioners in Canada on interpretation of a similar section may also be persuasive. Referring to cases from other countries or jurisdictions with different legislation is not. Determine your Purpose Before starting to write, you need to think about the purpose for which you are preparing the submission. Generally, the goal would be to persuade the Commissioner to your point of view. If you are an applicant, your objective is to persuade the Commissioner, for example, that the requested records should be released, the fee is unreasonable or the fee should be waived. If you are a public body/trustee, your objective is to persuade the Commissioner that your decision not to release was correct. If you are a third party, your objective is to persuade the Commissioner that documents containing your third-party information should not be released. The goal is to persuade a neutral body that your position is right, and recommendations should be made accordingly. Jurisdiction The process begins when an applicant requests a review by the Commissioner. By taking such a step, the applicant has presumed the Commissioner has jurisdiction. Jurisdiction comes from the wording in FOIP, LA FOIP or HIPA. When the Commissioner’s office receives a request for review, it does consider whether there is jurisdiction under one or more of the three statutes. A public body/trustee that has received a Notice of Review from the Commissioner’s office may have the opinion that the Commissioner does not have jurisdiction to review the matter. If so, the public body/trustee will presumably wish to say so in its submission. In that case, the first heading in the submission should be addressing the jurisdictional issue. Court of King’s Bench for Saskatchewan and Saskatchewan Court of Appeal decisions are relevant. Cases from other provinces or territories may be relevant if the legislation, section or subsection is similar to Saskatchewan’s legislation. The practice of the Commissioner’s office has been to consider the issue of jurisdiction and other issues in one report. The Commissioner’s office has generally not issued a preliminary report dealing with jurisdiction only. Thus, after dealing with the jurisdiction issue, a submission should go on to deal with the other issues raised by the Commissioner’s office in the Notice of Review (i.e., the other issues identified as the scope of the review). Again, the Commissioner will
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