MEDICINE HAT’S TRANSPARENCY TANTRUM: City Spends Public Money Fighting a Ghost—And Keeps Losing

Dec 4

City Ignores Privacy Watchdog’s Warnings, Loses Again

In what’s becoming a beloved civic tradition—like the Santa Claus Parade, but with more legalese and losses—the City of Medicine Hat has added five more failures to its losing streak. The City tried to convince Alberta’s privacy watchdog that people asking for information are just being pesky. The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) handed them a firm, judicial “no” each time.

The five new orders, released this month, mirror a pattern the OIPC has already called out. Last year, the City filed four similar applications to “disregard” information requests (two filed by Nicole Frey, two filed by Owl News founder Thomas Fougere). Instead of addressing the requests, the City ran to the OIPC to have them thrown out as “frivolous, vexatious, or made in bad faith.” The Commissioner’s adjudicator, in a masterclass of patient repetition, shot down each attempt.

The City argued the applicants had an “ulterior motive.” The adjudicator replied, essentially, So what?

The City claimed the requests were “burdensome.” The adjudicator noted that’s what the FOIP process is designed to address.

The adjudicator dismissed all four, noting in the final decision: “These decisions should provide guidance to the Public Body… I encourage the Public Body to ensure it has evidence to support its application before it considers bringing another one in the future.”

The City apparently did not take the hint.

The latest batch of rejections targeted requests from former resident Nicole Frey, who left Medicine Hat after what she describes as impossible barriers to obtaining business licenses and permits. Her requests sought records on topics like severance payments and communications between the City and its lawyers.

It’s a strategy as costly as it is futile. While the exact legal bill isn’t public, the price tag for these losing battles could have funded public amenities—or that seminar the City clearly needs: “How to Just Send the Damn Documents.”

A Campaign That Drove a Resident Out

The City’s posture toward Frey appeared to go beyond bureaucratic resistance. During a public committee meeting in 2023—broadcast live but not recorded by the City for archive—a member of the previous City Council was heard on a live mic asking, “What is her problem anyway?”

That moment, like many others, would have vanished if not for the work of local independent media,
The Medicine Hat Owl, which began recording and re-broadcasting these sessions.

Critics are frustrated, saying the OIPC literally told them last year to stop bringing these weak applications. They didn’t listen. Now they’ve wasted even more time and money fighting requests. Most of this could be avoided if they just posted information online proactively.

Indeed, the concept of “proactive disclosure”—where public information is simply published—seems as foreign to Medicine Hat’s administration as a federal Liberal candidate at a victory party in Alberta.

A Pattern of Pettiness, From the Top Down

This entrenched culture is widely traced to the tenure of former City Manager Ann Mitchell, who was dismissed earlier this year “with cause”.
Mitchell’s reputation for treating information requests as personal slights was so firm she reportedly stonewalled even the mayor.
Under that leadership, a “deny first, justify never” approach became standard practice—and it appears the habit has outlasted her.

*(Former City Manager Ann Mitchell - July 7 2025 - Photo Credit Kelly Allard, Owl News)*

FOIP (Freedom Of Information and the Protection of Privacy Act) now named ATIA (Access To Information Act) requests come under the authority of the City Clerk’s office.
The City Clerk hired by Mitchell, Tarolyn Aaserud, is currently the Interim City Manager.

*(Tarolyn Aaserud - July 7 2025 - photo credit Kelly Allard, Owl News)*

What’s Next? More Orders, More Defiance?

With the five new dismissal attempts dead, the City has been ordered to process the substantive requests. The question now is whether they will comply, or whether they will continue a pattern that one OIPC adjudicator has already deemed wasteful and evidentially barren.

For Medicine Hat taxpayers, it’s a double levy: you fund a government that doesn’t want you to know how it operates, and then you fund its losing legal battles to keep you in the dark—even from those it has already driven away.

The City of Medicine Hat has been contacted for comment. Given their track record, they are presumably consulting their lawyers on whether they can apply to have this article disregarded.

We have a brand new council. Hopefully they will take up the cause and make the City as transparent as the many, many windows at City Hall.