Alberta overhauls FOIP legislation, but wait times may get longer

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The Alberta government is proposing an overhaul of the province’s access to information rules that it says will modernize dated policies — but it’s also likely to lengthen the timeline to receive documents and the appeals process.

Bill 34 —  the Access to Information Act — was tabled in the legislature Wednesday afternoon by Service Alberta Minister Dale Nally.

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The legislation seeks to repeal the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIP) Act and split it into two pieces of legislation: one focused on privacy, the other on information access.

Nally noted the FOIP Act was last updated two decades ago and argued the changes were long overdue.

“This means a more straightforward, transparent, and responsive process for accessing public body records,” he told reporters.

“The last time these amendments were released, you probably read about them on Windows 95.”

Longer timelines

The bill proposes changing the timeline around receiving FOIP requests from the current 30 calendar days to 30 business days, which could increase the response time by weeks, depending on when the request was made.

Under the bill, business days are defined as any day other than a Saturday, holiday, or day when Alberta government offices are closed.

It also lengthens the appeal process to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) by requiring the person filing the complaint to first make it with the public body they are seeking records from rather than appealing directly to the commissioner.

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This reflects a change introduced last April when a similar procedure was enacted for adequate search concerns, where it is believed the public body is holding more records than it provided.

Under that rule, complaints are required to be sent to the entity first who then have at least 30 working days to respond, effectively extending the complaint process by more than a month.

Proactive disclosure

The government said the new bill will also clarify that bodies can proactively disclose information — something many already do.

Some government information is already proactively disclosed, including travel expenses, sole-source contracts, and data and statistics via the government’s open data program.

FOIP co-ordinators are also already free to share completed requests upon request, though there is no list or database of completed requests similar to that used by the federal government and in some other provinces, and the proposed legislation makes no effort to set up such a system.

In practice, however, co-operation over proactive disclosure is not always assured, with some departments outright ignoring such requests and others prompting lengthy investigations.

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In March 2023, Postmedia requested a list of completed FOIP requests from Alberta Justice, which the department initially claimed did not exist.

Following a request for review, the OIPC determined such a list did exist in the form of a weekly report. Alberta Justice then claimed providing the completed requests would require a $25 fee per request, amounting to $450 in fees.

Late last year, the department contacted Postmedia to say it would produce the completed requests without fees, eventually doing so last January, some 10 months after the initial request.

Ongoing investigation

Nally rejected the idea that the changes would make records harder to obtain and make it easier for the government to keep things secret.

“That’s not true,” he said. “What this is going to do is essentially modernize the legislation.”

Alberta privacy commissioner Diane McLeod launched a government-wide investigation last August following reporting from the Narwhal and the Globe and Mail that indicated government departments were failing to follow public disclosure laws.

Her investigation was extended over the summer and is set to conclude as soon as next month.

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When asked why the government didn’t wait for the review’s results, Nally said his department had “consulted extensively” with McLeod’s office.

“We will continue to (consult) when we build these regulations, and we’ll continue to take whatever feedback that she has.”

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