OIPC to Review City Response to FOIP Request
April 13 2024 - Over one year ago I filed a FOIP request for my personal information. The response I received was woefully inadequate. The City FOIP office said that there were over 3400 records pertaining to my request and they needed an extra month to process it. The package I received had less than 300 pages, much of it was duplicated and outside the date parameters of Dec 1 2020 to April 13 2024.
I received information that I can only assume was meant to embarrass me - a document over a decade old about payment arrangement, a twenty year old pothole complaint.
One document has nothing to do with me but I was able to see the account number and payment info of a complete stranger.
I received information that the City was recording those who joined committee meetings remotely. The meetings are public but the Public Body - the City of Medicine Hat - has no right to record the names of meeting attendees. They don’t record the names of the people sitting in Council Chambers, they don’t record the names of people watching their Youtube recording of Council meetings, they have no right to record the names of the people viewing/attending the Committee Meetings. I now use a fictitious name when I join remotely.
I also received the minutes of a closed meeting, something the public is NOT entitled to.
I had proof of missing documents when local resident Nicole Frey sent me a copy of an email she had received as part of her FOIP request that had my unredacted name in it. That document was NOT in my own packet. I asked the City when I would receive the rest of the documents and they said there were no more. I sent them the copy of the missing e-mail and again asked them when I would receive the missing documents. Their response was
“Every request is directed by search terms and time periods specific to it. The report provided to you is a result of the search terms specific to your request”.
As a result of that answer, the OIPC is investigating with one question.
Did the Public Body meet its duty to the applicant according to 10(1) of the FOIP Act
(conducting a reasonable search)?
The FOIP Act says
Duty to assist applicants
10(1) The head of a public body must make every reasonable effort to assist applicants and to respond to each applicant openly, accurately and completely.
The City must provide the records to the OIPC by April 25 2025, the review is anticipated to be complete by Feb 10 2026. The City must provide either:
One version of the records at issue if it contains both the unredacted and the redacted information on the same document. The document must identify what provision was used to withhold the information and the part being redacted.
One unredacted version and one redacted version of the records at issue. One of those versions must provide the provision used to withhold the information and what part is being redacted.
Here is the link to the Complaint and Supporting Documents. The red redactions are mine.
Yesterday, I filed another personal FOIP request.
I asked for the exact same thing but the date parameters are everything from April 13 2024 to April 17 2025.
I have a good reason doing this. This is an election year.
My previous FOIP unveiled the disturbing Big Brother Behaviour displayed by the City during the last election where they were monitoring the campaigns of candidates (they even gave me my very own category!). They were even wondering is there was any way to censor candidates.
I want them to know somebody is watching.
There have been numerous times where my Constitutional Right to Freedom of the Press was violated. I want to know the conversations they were having about that.
In my last package I received documents that showed that city staff was gossiping about me, even to people outside the organization. I want to know what they have been saying since. I am really hoping that their use of official city communication channels has become professional.
