Alberta’s Information and Privacy Commissioner has found the provincial government in breach of its legal obligations under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIP Act), following a 21-month investigation into how its departments process public access to information requests.Commissioner Diane McLeod released her findings on Thursday, revealing that all 27 Government of Alberta public bodies investigated had adopted practices that violate key provisions of the FOIP Act. The probe was initiated in August 2023 after widespread refusals of access requests, including those submitted by The Globe and Mail for its Secret Canada series.“This investigation specifically looked into whether the Government of Alberta public bodies’ practice of refusing access requests citing sections 7 and 10(2) of the FOIP Act was appropriate,” McLeod said in a statement. “My investigation found that these public bodies are not permitted by sections 7 and 10(2) to refuse access requests and that they contravened their duties to assist under section 10(1) in processing these requests.”According to the report, departments imposed restrictive conditions on applicants, including forcing them to limit access requests to a single topic, restrict the time period for records searches, split requests with multiple topics into separate filings, and tailor requests to fit within a 30-day processing window. These practices, McLeod concluded, undermined the intent of the FOIP Act and failed to uphold the government’s duty to assist applicants.Although the FOIP Act is expected to be repealed soon and replaced with the Access to Information Act, McLeod stated that her findings remain relevant. “My findings and recommendations in this report are in large part still valid under the new legislation,” she said, noting that the relevant provisions are either identical or substantially similar.The report, which was delivered to the heads of the 27 public bodies involved, outlines several recommendations aimed at bringing current and future practices into compliance.The Commissioner operates independently and is responsible for overseeing Alberta’s three access and privacy laws: the FOIP Act, the Health Information Act, and the Personal Information Protection Act.
