On June 3rd, the Court of Appeal for Newfoundland and Labrador held that the signature of an “employee” who authorized a vacation leave payout to a senior administrator at a college campus in Qatar was accessible to the public even though the individual was hired by Qatar, and not the College.
The matter turned on the meaning of “employee” under Newfoundland’s now repealed and replaced FOI statute, which at the time exempted all personal information from the right of access subject to an exemption for “information… about a third party’s position, function or remuneration as an officer, employee or member of a public body.” The Court held that the term employee is broad enough to include some independent contractors. It explained:
The statutory context and the purpose of the Act, however, would appear to limit including independent contractors only to those who, by virtue of their contract, are required to perform services for the public body in a manner that involves them as a functional cog in the institutional structure of the organization. It is those persons whose personal information about position and functions which can be regarded as employees and still promote the purpose and object of the legislation. To restrict the definition further would be to shield information about certain aspects of the public body’s operations and functioning from potential public scrutiny. To expand the definition further would equally not promote the object and purpose of the Act because it would allow for disclosure of personal information that does not elucidate the institutional functioning of the public body which is to be held accountable.
The Court’s affirmation of the public’s right of access here is no surprise. For one, the record suggested that the College and Qatar were common employers. More fundamentally, the privacy interest in the signature that would justify the outcome sought by the College was simply too minimal to give its interpretation argument principled force. In Ontario, signatures made in one’s professional capacity are not even considered to be one’s personal information.
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