Recently we shared the story of our successful review at the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner. Now that we have received the documents ordered by the Privacy Commissioner’s office to be released to us, there is more to this case than we originally thought. It turns out this is a prime example of the government wasting your money.
As you may recall, our Freedom of Information request was not complete as the Government was claiming privilege over several attachments to briefing notes. After a review with the Information and Privacy Commissioner, several of the documents over which privilege was claimed were ordered to be released to us.
Tax dollars were wasted while lawyers created a smokescreen to hide a document I already owned
What we got will blow your minds.
We got documents we already owned.
Not just documents we already owned, but documents that consisted of a letter sent by a lawyer at the Attorney General’s office to me, and a response I wrote to that letter.
If your mind is not blown, let me explain.
The documents that the Government fought so hard to keep us from seeing are documents that we have not only seen, but documents that were drafted for the purpose of being sent to our office and drafted by us, for the purpose of being sent to the Attorney General. They were designed to be released. Heck, they are even in certain court files and therefore are publicly accessible.
But the Government wasted your time, money, and tax dollars claiming privilege over something they knew darn well we already had.
The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner is a busy office. There are many important freedom of information disputes that need to be resolved by the Privacy Commissioner. The Privacy Commissioner’s time is valuable. And their resources are limited. If you think it takes your case a long time to get to court, the timeline in the Privacy Commissioner’s office is even longer. Significantly longer.
But adding to the burden by fighting over something that you know darn well is not privileged is wasteful and shameful. It stretches an already overburdened resource, with no justification. And it gives the appearance that the Government was being deliberately obtuse in responding to the Freedom of Information request in order to tie up the limited resources of Acumen Law Corporation, or to deliberately inconvenience our office.
Nothing would have changed about what I know and what the Government knows by releasing these documents.Their claim in the review that the documents would tend to reveal the nature of the legal advice being sought was meritless. Examining the documents they only tell me what I already know. I know the government was getting legal advice on this issue because I was communicating with their lawyers on the issue.
Like, duh.
Not only did this review waste the time and resources of the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, but it also cost our taxpayers money.
In order to deal with the inquiry, several lawyers were involved. Several more lawyers were required to provide affidavits to explain why certain documents were or were not privileged. That money was billed from taxpayer-funded accounts to the Government, to pay for the lawyers’ time. Tax dollars were wasted while lawyers created a smokescreen to hide a document I already owned because I wrote it.
When I pay taxes I expect they will be put to good use. Paying for schools, medical care, and public resources like roads and highways. I do not expect my tax dollars to be wasted paying lawyers to fight over something that is not worth fighting over. And so does every other taxpayer. There are very few things that make people more angry than the government wasting your money in a pointless battle.
The only conclusion I can come to on the basis of the conduct of the Government in refusing to disclose, on the grounds of privilege, a document that was sent and addressed to me and a document I created and sent to them is that the Government was deliberately trying to obstruct my right to freedom of information.
And that is as shameful as the rest of this.