Court of Appeal affirms robust interpretation of academic freedom exclusion in Alberta

On October 28, 2025, the Court of Appeal of Alberta affirmed that the Alberta Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (the OIPC) acted unreasonably in narrowly construing the teaching and research records exclusion in the Alberta Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA).

The request and OIPC decision

The request was for information pertaining to a complaint made by two University of Calgary law professors to the Canadian Judicial Council regarding Justice Robin Camp, who resigned from the bench in 2017 after the CJC recommended his removal for comments made in hearing a sexual assault case.

The OIPC construed the teaching and research records exclusion narrowly, and expressly stated, “There is no indication in the Act that these categories are determined via balancing interests in disclosure versus academic freedom.” The disputed records included e-mail discussions among professors about what might be taught in a particular course, which the OIPC held were not “teaching materials,” which it defined as “materials the substance of which imparts knowledge, skill, or instruction.” The OIPC also held that the disputed records were not comprised of “research information” when weighed against the “systematic investigation” definition of research adopted by the Ontario IPC.

The Court of Appeal decision

The Court of Appeal identified fundamental flaws in the IPC reasoning.

First, it held that the OIPC’S reasons “simply repeat[ed] statutory language, summariz[ed] arguments made, and then stat[ed] a peremptory conclusion.” The OIPC defined the terms as capturing mostly finished products ultimately presented in classrooms or publicly shared through publications. This, it said, “renders ss 4(1)(h) and (i) largely redundant, as a FOIPPA request would serve little purpose with respect to materials already in the public domain.”

Second, it held that the OIPC “arbitrarily chose definitions of ‘teaching materials’ and ‘research information’ without engaging in the necessary statutory interpretation,” failing to explain why restrictive interpretations were preferable and failing to reckon with legislative intent. Regarding this intent, the Court drew from the important Supreme Court of Canada “Mandate Letters Case” from 2024 in stating that freedom of information statutes “engage significant competing public interests and strike an important balance between the public’s need for transparency and visibility in the conduct of public agencies and the need for confidentiality and/or privacy protection for some of those very same institutions to perform their important public functions effectively.”

Discussion about the scope of research

The parties were joined by intervenors from the Faculty Association of the University of Calgary, the Canadian Association of University Teachers, and the Canadian Association of Law Teachers, all of whom took issue with certain obiter comments made by the chambers judge that suggested a distinction between academic study of social activism and direct participation in social activism, with participation falling outside the statutory exclusion.

The Court of Appeal rejected this approach, stating:

We agree that academic freedom exists to protect all scholarship, including that which may be unpopular or politically targeted. A distinction between participation in activism and study of activism may lead to definitions of “teaching materials” and “research information” which exclude novel teaching methodologies, teaching and research activities on particular topics involving what might be construed as participation in activism, and other direct engagement in the community outside the traditional classroom setting, as well as an academic’s participation relating to responsibilities or duties at their post-secondary institution.

This is a critical clarification. The exclusion protects the process of academic work, broadly defined.

Conclusion

The Court of Appeal’s decision is a decisive affirmation that academic freedom exclusions must be interpreted purposively, not formalistically. The OIPC’s narrow approach – treating these as mere carve-outs rather than affirmative protections for the academy’s core function – was fundamentally unreasonable. This approach is grounded in first principles and the Mandate Letters Case, in which Justice Karakatsanis wrote:

Freedom of information (FOI) legislation strikes a balance between the public’s need to know and the confidentiality the executive requires to govern effectively. Both are crucial to the proper functioning of our democracy.

It is therefore applicable beyond Alberta’s borders, notwithstanding the narrower view taken by Ontario IPC.

As a procedural matter, the University identified the records as teaching or research materials, so neither the University’s right of access to the records nor the question of custody and control were at issue. The matter of exclusion and a university’s entitlement to handle records and determine whether they are excluded are distinct. This case, by illustration, underscores the university entitlement.

Governors of the University of Calgary v Alberta (Information and Privacy Commissioner), 2025 ABCA 350 (CanLII), <https://canlii.ca/t/kg5f3>, retrieved on 2025-11-17

BCCA sends notice issue back to BC OIPC

On September 25th, the Court of Appeal for British Columbia partially upheld Airbnb’s successful judicial review of a British Columbia OIPC decision that required the City of Vancouver to disclose short term rental addresses along with related information, but vacated the application judge’s order to notify over 20,000 affected individuals.

Background

The City licenses short term rentals. It publicly discloses license information, presumably to enable renter inquires. However, the City stopped publishing host names and rental addresses with license information in 2018 based on credible reports of safety risks. Evidence of the safety risks was on the record before the OIPC – general evidence about “concerned vigilante activity” and harassment, evidence about a particular stalking episode in 2019 and evidence that raised a concern about enabling criminals to determine when renters likely to be out of the country.

The OIPC nonetheless ordered the City to disclose:

License numbers of individuals;
Home addresses of all hosts (also principle residences given licensing requirements); and
License numbers associated with the home addresses.

It was common ground that the above information could be readily linked to hosts by using publicly available information, rendering the order upsetting to Airbnb’s means of protecting its hosts. Airbnb only discloses the general area of rentals on its platform, which allows hosts to screen renters before disclosing their address.

Supreme Court Decision

The application judge affirmed the OIPC dismissal of the City’s safety concern as a reasonable application of the Merck test, but held that the OIPC erred on two other grounds.

First, the Court held that the OIPC unreasonably held that home address information was contact information rather than personal information. It failed to consider the context in making a simplistic finding that home address information was “contact information” because the home address was used as a place of business. The disclosure of the home address information, in the context, had a significant privacy impact that the OIPC ought to have considered.

Second, the Court held that the OIPC erred in not giving notice to the affected hosts – who numbered at least 20,000 – and for not providing reasons for its failure. The Court said this was a breach of procedural fairness, a breach punctuated by the evidence of a stalking and harassment risk that the OIPC acknowledged but held did not meet the Merck threshold.

Appeal Court Decision

The Court of Appeal affirmed the lower court’s contact information finding. It also held that the matter of notice to third parties ought to have been raised before the OIPC at the first instance, and that the application judge ought not to have ordered notice to be given. It stressed the OIPC’s discretion, and said:

Relevant facts that may inform the analysis include the nature of the records in issue, the number of potentially affected third parties, the practical logistics of providing notice, whether there are alternative means of doing so, and potential institutional resource issues.

Analysis

Giving notice and an opportunity to make submissions to 20,000 affected individuals is no small matter. In this case, valid electronic contact information was likely available. However, even a 2% response rate would generated 400 submissions, each of which deserving of due consideration.

Many institutions, thinking practically, would simply deny access as a means of avoiding this burden and respecting affected party rights, bearing in mind that the Supreme Court of Canada cautioned in Merck that notice should be given prior to disclosure in all but “clear cases.” When an institution denies access to avoid a massive notification burden, that burden transfers to the relevant commissioner/adjudicator, and even recognizing “practical logistics” and “institutional resource issues,” is see no reason why the “clear cases” rule from Merck should not be the governing test.

The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia v. Airbnb Ireland UC, 2024 BCCA 333.

BCSC quashes FOI decision about risk of harm to Airbnb hosts

On July 4th, the Supreme Court of British Columbia quashed a British Columbia OIPC order to provide an FOI requester with access to information about Airbnbs operating in the City of Vancouver.

The OIPC nonetheless ordered the City to disclose:

License numbers of individuals;
Home addresses of all hosts (also principle residences given licensing requirements); and
License numbers associated with the home adresses.

The Court affirmed the OIPC dismissal of the City’s safety concern as a reasonable application of the Merck test, but held that the OIPC erred on two other grounds.

This is a wonderful case that illustrates how judicial review works. In my view, the evidence about the risk of harm drove the outcome despite the Court’s affirmation of the OIPC finding. The Court simply found an easier way to address the problem with the OIPC’s outcome – a procedural fairness finding. The notice obligation is no small obligation in cases like this, but cannot be rightly ignored.

Airbnb Ireland UC v Vancouver City, 2023 BCSC 1137.

OCA says Children’s Lawyer records not under MAG’s custody or control

On June 18th the Court of Appeal for Ontario held that the Ministry of the Attorney General is not in custody or control of records in a Children’s Lawyer litigation file even though the Children’s Lawyer, for administrative purposes, is part of MAG. The finding turns on the Children’s Lawyer’s independence and the privacy interests of the children it represents. These kind of contextual factors are important to the custody or control analysis. As stated by the Court, “an organization’s administrative structure is not determinative of custody or control for purposes of FIPPA.”

This decision is consistent with other law that suggests records within an institution are not always in custody or control of an institution – e.g., certain faculty records and personal e-mails. Custody or control is therefore no simple concept to administer and is prone to dispute. At least for now IPC decisions will be subject to judicial review on the correctness standard, another (surprising) finding the Court of Appeal made in rendering its decision.

Ontario (Children’s Lawyer) v. Ontario (Information and Privacy Commissioner), 2018 ONCA 559 (CanLII).

Div Ct. quashes IPC decision for failure to identify PI under consideration

On December 18th, the Divisional Court quashed an IPC/Ontario order that affirmed a municipal institution’s decision to apply the public interest override in disclosing an internal investigation report. The Court held that the IPC erred by not identifying the personal information under consideration in its reasons:

[67] The Commissioner is essentially asking this court to undertake the detailed analysis of the information in the Report described above, decide what portions of the Report fall within the s. 14 personal information exemption, and then assess the reasonableness of the Commissioner’s application of the s. 16 test based on that conclusion. That is not the role of this court. That complex analysis goes beyond supplementing the reasons. It amounts to asking this court to review the reasonableness of the Commissioner’s decision based on our own assessment of what was exempted under s. 14 rather than based on what the Commissioner decided was exempted.

[68] Given the acknowledged need to disclose only that portion of the exempted information that meets the s. 16 “clearly outweighs” balancing test, each piece of personal information that is exempted under s. 14 must form part of the analysis that the section requires. In this case, we do not know what the Commissioner was weighing as against the public interest. This is not a matter of considering what reasons could be offered in support of the decision; it is a matter of not knowing what his decision was on that complex issue, which is prerequisite to the application of s. 16. This is especially important in regard to the application of s.16 because the public interest override, which is rarely used, can have a major impact on individuals whose personal information would normally be protected by a statutory exemption.

Barker v. Ontario (Information and Privacy Commissioner), 2017 ONSC 7564 (CanLII).

Court affirms IPC decision on doctor payments

On June 30th, the Divisional Court affirmed an Information and Privacy Commissioner/Ontario decision that the amounts billed to OHIP by top billing doctors did not constitute the doctors’ personal information.

The Court’s decision is a standard of review decision – i.e., one that accepts the IPC’s decision as reasonable. Notably, the Court was influenced by an argument made by the doctors that (pre-expense) billing amounts do not fairly represent personal income yet could be misconstrued as such by the public. The answer to such arguments is an easy one for most FOI adjudicators and courts: provide an explanation to the public if you think you’ll be misunderstood. The Court didn’t say that in this case, but noted that the doctors’ argument was supportive of the IPC decision that their billing amounts were not revealing enough to be personal information.

Otherwise, the Court made short work of the doctors’ attempts to impugn the IPC’s reasoning and an argument that the IPC procedure gave rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias.

Ontario Medical Association v Ontario (Information and Privacy Commissioner), 2017 ONSC 4090 (CanLII).

Reasonable necessity not enough to justify collection under Ontario’s public sector statutes

Section 38(2) is an important provision of Ontario’s provincial public sector privacy statue. It requires institutions to satisfy a necessity standard in collecting personal information. Ontario’s municipal public sector privacy statute contains the same provision.

On May 4th, the Divisional Court dismissed an Liquor Control Board of Ontario argument that the Information and Privacy Commissioner/Ontario had erred by applying a higher standard than “reasonable necessity” in resolving a section 38(2) issue. The Divisional Court held that the Court of Appeal for Ontario’s Cash Converters case establishes just such a standard:

The LCBO relies upon Cash Converters to support its submission that the IPC erred in not interpreting “necessary” as meaning “reasonably necessary.” However, Cash Converters does not interpret “necessary” in this way. In fact, it suggests the opposite. Arguably, something that is “helpful” to an activity could be “reasonably necessary” to that activity. Yet, the Court of Appeal makes it clear that “helpful” is not sufficient.

It’s hard to fathom a legislative intent to prohibit a practice that is, by definition “reasonable.” If the LCBO seeks and is granted leave to appeal this could lead to an important clarification from the Court of Appeal on a strict interpretation of section 38(2) that has stood for some time. The LCBO practice at issue – which involves collecting the non-sensitive information of wine club members to control against the illegal stockpiling and reselling of alcohol – is a good one for testing the line.

Liquor Control Board of Ontario v Vin De Garde Wine Club, 2025 ONSC 2537.

FOI matter moot because the stated reasons for a request spent

On December 15, the Alberta Court of Appeal held that an FOI matter was moot, in part, because the stated reasons for a request were spent. It said:

Second, the dispute about whether certain records can remain private is of no further consequence or practical utility. The ATA wanted SBEBA’s records for reasons that are, now, purely academic. There is no longer any need for the ATA “to gain a full understanding of the operation of SBEBA with its member school boards”; there is no longer any risk of the ATA not “following correct procedures related to the SBEBA” or “interfering with or being seen to interfere with the SBEBA”. Further, the collective agreement entered into between the ATA and Buffalo Trail has long since expired, such that there is no longer any need “to act fully on” it. SBEBA was not revived for the most recent collective bargaining process and will not be the bargaining agent for, or otherwise negotiate on behalf of, Buffalo Trail in any future such process or dispute.

The Court also held that the OIPC lacked standing to pursue an appeal because the issue under appeal did not go to its jurisdiction.

This is another example of the very tough go the OIPC has had in the Alberta courts.

Alberta Teachers’ Association v Information and Privacy Commissioner, 2014 ABCA 432 (CanLII).

Review of IPC exclusion decisions now (officially) subject to reasonableness review

A friend just brought a notable FIPPA judicial review from February 24th to my attention. In it, the Divisional Court affirmed an IPC order to disclose the full names of FRO employees in response to a request for personal information.

The IPC held that the employment-related records exclusion in FIPPA did not apply to certain records containing employee names – records of services provided to the requester. The Court reviewed this on the reasonableness standard, finding that pre-Alberta Teachers‘ case law supporting a review on the correctness standard no longer applies. On the application of the exclusion, the Court rejected an argument that the records of service provided were employment-related in the context:

To qualify for the exclusion, the record must be about labour relations or employment-related matters. The dictionary definition of the word “about” requires that the record do more than have some connection to or some relationship with a labour relations matter. “About” means “on the subject of” or “concerning”: see Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., 2004, s.v. “about”. This means that to qualify for the exclusion the subject matter of the record must be a labour relations or employment-related matter.

Adopting the Ministry’s broad interpretation of “about” would mean that a routine operational record or portion of a record connected with the core mandate of a government institution could be excluded from the scope of the Act because such a record could potentially be connected to an employment-related concern, is touched upon in a collective agreement, or could become the subject of a grievance. This interpretation would subvert the principle of openness and public accountability that the Act is designed to foster.

This should be read to be consistent with the Divisional Court’s earlier decision that there need only be “some connection” with excluded subject matter for the exclusion to apply: see Ministry of Attorney General and Toronto Star, 2010 ONSC 991 (CanLII). Records that have some connection (i.e. a partial connection) to excluded subject matter are arguably still excluded, but the connection must be real, not speculative and not driven by the context in which a request is made.

The Court also affirmed the IPC’s finding that full name information is not exempt under the “unjustified invasion of personal privacy” exemption.

Question. Why not argue that the information at issue – full names or identifying information – is not “personal information” to which the right of access to personal information applies? The right of access to personal information applies to information and not whole records. In the absence of a special context, the identity of employee/service provider names should not constitute the requester/service recipient’s personal information.

Ministry of Community and Social Services v Doe et al (2014), 120 O.R. (3d) 451.

Div Ct affirms decision to give access to government contract

On December 2nd the Divisional Court affirmed an IPC/Ontario decision that granted access to a municipal contract. The decision is an administrative law decision, but the Court does summarize the principles that govern access to government contracts as follows:

absent evidence to the contrary, the content of a negotiated contract involving a government institution and a third party is presumed to have been generated in the give and take of negotiations, not “supplied” by the third party under section 10(1) of the Act [and therefore potentially subject to exemption]
the inferred disclosure exception arises where information actually supplied does not appear on the face of a contract but may be inferred from its disclosure
the immutability exception arises in relation to information actually supplied by a third party which appears within a contract but which is not susceptible to change in the give and take of the negotiation process such as financial statements, underlying fixed costs and product samples or designs

Under these principles government contracts are very accessible, so much so that the IPC has suggested that Ontario access legislation be amended so contract requests give rise to fewer disputes.

On administrative law, the Court applied Newfoundland Nurses and held that the IPC’s “conclusory” reasons were not sufficient grounds for review in light of the record.

Miller Transit Limited v Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, 2013 ONSC 7139 (CanLII).

[Here’s another contract case from November 28th, also written by Justice Himel but too fact specific to warrant a post. Partial access appeal decision affirmed: HKSC Developments LP v Infrastructure Ontario and Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, 2013 ONSC 6776 (CanLII).]