Background

July 29 2024, I submitted a FOIP request in person for my personal information with the MHPS (Medicine Hat Police Service).
October 9 I submitted another request in person in regards to the events of October 8 2024. When I dropped it off, I asked for a receipt so they called someone down to help me. The person explained that they were in the process of training a number of new people on adminstering FOIP requests. I was asked for my identification so they could be sure that the person asking was the person who was entitled to received the records. (Yes, they knew who I was but I appreciated them asking for my ID. They are merely protecting my information.)
October 10 I started sending daily e-mails requesting formal receipts of my FOIP requests. I sent them to the following e-mail address posted on the MHPS website for FOIP requests.

policeinfo@mhps.ca

Under Section 11 of the FOIP Act, the responding public body has 30 days to respond unless they issue an extension under Section 14. The extension is for at least another 30 days and may be longer under certain circumstances.

Today October 25 marks 88 days since I submitted my July 29 2024 FOIP request.

Until yesterday Oct 24 I had received nothing.

- no autoreply
- no notification of an extension
- no “could not be delivered” message
- no acknowledgment that it was even received
- nothing, nada, nil, zilch.

Yesterday Oct 24

I added both the Medicine Hat Police Commission (MHPC) and Greg Keen (Director of Public Complaints, MHPC) to the e-mail. Mr Keen responded within 90 minutes, saying he had forwarded it to the Professional Standards. The FOIP Coordinator was not an MHPS member so it was outside of his authority.

I thanked him for his help.

Four minutes later, I received an auto reply saying it had been brought to the attention of the Police Information Coordinator.

I responded saying that I would appreciate a response from an actual human.

Three hours later, I did indeed get a response from an actual human. Apparently none of my e-mails had gone through, this was the first they heard of anything.

I thought that was odd so I checked the e-mail address on the website. I noticed the e-mail they sent the response from was slightly different; the e-mail address I was sending to was missing a dot. It was entirely possible that I was the one who screwed up.

I didn’t screw up

Screenshot Oct 24, E-mail Address has been corrected since then.

The e-mail address on the website was the same one I was sending to. I took screenshots and forwarded them, saying this would certainly explain why none of my e-mails were received. They acknowledged the error. They also discovered that my e-mails were being filtered “despite no settings being selected to do so”. I was assured that they would contact IT about the filtering issue; they also have the e-mail address corrected on the website.

The email address was corrected this morning.

The message I received said “Our records show two requests submitted that have yet to be reviewed: one from August 27th, and one from October 9th. A third request is in process nearing completion. You should have those records by the end of the week along with a formal response outlining all severing references.”

I’m not irritated at the person responding, I’m irritated at the procedures or lack thereof. The FOIP Act is legislation that all public bodies must follow. Not having enough staff is no excuse, they can contract out the service if they must. Police services must follow the legislation just like everybody else; they are not above the law. Too many people are willing to let this slide, often thinking “the police have better things to do”. The officers on the street are not the ones dealing with FOIPs, that is a different section altogether.

It is up to us to hold public bodies accountable
when they fail to fulfill their legislative duties.

I do feel bad for the staff that must deal with the shortfalls that are no fault of their own and who must respond to irritated members of the public.

E-Mail Chain

I’m including the e-mail chain, there is no personal information. I’m also including screenshots of the website with the incorrect address. One of the messages received from the MHPS dates my July 29 request as August 29, that is incorrect. I’m assuming a clerical error, 7 is right next to 8 on the numberpad. It’s moot anyway, it’s still way over the time limit for responding.

I’ll keep you posted.