NSCA outlines the “law of redaction”

Exactly when should an entire document be withheld because redaction is not reaonable?

Freedom of information adjudicators have used the concept of “disconnected snippets” to delineate; if redaction would leave a reader with meaningless “disconnected snippets,” entire records can rightly be withheld.

The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal, on August 7th, applied similar logic in determining that a set of affidavits “could not be redacted without sacrificing their intelligibility and therefore the utility of public access.” It therefore held that the affidavits could be sealed in whole in compliance with the necessity component of the test from Sherman Estate.

Notably, the Court reviewed cases that establish a second basis for full record withholding – cost. In Patient X v College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia, the Nova Scotia Supreme Court held that redacting a 120-page records would be too “painstaking and prone to error” given it included a significant number of handwritten notes. And in Khan v College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice reached a similar finding given the record requiring redaction was almost 4,500 pages in length, requiring an error prone hunt for (sensitive) patient information.

Back to freedom of information, where costs are passed through to requesters. In Ontario, the norm is to charge through two minutes a page for redaction. Should a premium be chargeable for handwritten records or records that contain very sensitive information?

Dempsey v. Pagefreezer Software Inc., 2024 NSCA 76 (CanLII).

Federal Court of Appeal modifies test for application of open courts principle to administrative tribunals

On July 27th, the Federal Court of Appeal held that the Parole Board of Canada erred in denying the media access to recordings of its hearings.

The matter was about an application for copies of recordings of parole hearings involving notorious convicted criminals Paul Bernardo, William Shrubsall and Craig Monro. The Corrections and Conditional Release Act provides for parole hearings that the Supreme Court of Canada has said are inquisitorial in that the Board is bound to consider all evidence put before it in conducting a form of risk assessment. The Act also gives the public a presumptive right to attend hearings. The media can therefore (presumptively) attend and report on hearings, though the Act deems personal information in the recordings (and other documents on the record) not to be publicly available for for the purpose of the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act.

The CBC relied on the open courts principle, though the Court ultimately determined the matter on administrative law grounds. It held the Board unreasonably reckoned with the odd scenario – that the media had already heard and reported on everything recorded even though it was deemed not to be publicly available – and erroneously refused to disclose the recordings “outright” based on an unreasonable amplification of the privacy risk. It suggested that there may be some privacy risks in providing access, but that they could be satisficed by imposing conditions on storage and republication.

As for the open courts principle, the Court accepted the following Board argument against application:

The Board says that it is not because its proceedings are inquisitorial – not adversarial – in that the Board is engaged in a risk assessment process in the course of which it receives information from Corrections Canada and submissions from the offender and victims. The offender is not opposed by a representative of the state, as is the case, for example, in a sentencing hearing. Similarly, the offender’s counsel, if they have one, has a limited role in Board hearings.

It also, however, modified and expanded the test for application, noting that the test should focus on the degree to which a tribunal presides over an adversarial proceeding rather than the procedural trappings of the proceeding. It explained:

It appears that, whatever other distinctions may exist between different kinds of administrative tribunals, the fact that a tribunal presides over adversarial proceedings as an adjudicative body is a reliable indicator that the tribunal is subject to the open court principle. It is the fact of adjudicating competing interests that imposes the duty of fairness and impartiality which gave rise to the description of some tribunals as quasi-judicial. In Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd. v. Ontario (Attorney General), 2018 ONSC 2586, 142 O.R. (3d) 266, such tribunals were described as adjudicative tribunals. The characteristic that gives rise to the application of the open court principle to an administrative tribunal is the presence of an adversarial process, as opposed to the formalities by which that adversarial process is conducted. In short, the open court principle applies to adjudicative tribunals.

The Court ordered the matter to be returned to the Board for reconsideration.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation v. Canada (Parole Board), 2023 FCA 166 (CanLII).

Application for non-profit investigation as open as any court proceeding, SKCA

On June 20th, the Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan affirmed the lifting of a sealing order and publication ban over arguments made by a non-profit corporation that its mandate warranted an exception to the general rule of court openness.

The corporation was subject to an application for an inspection under section 214 of The Non-Profit Corporations Act of Saskatchewan based on alleged misuse of funds by its Executive Director. The corporation provides shelter and sustenance to impoverished and at-risk clientele, and argued its ability to provide these services would be impeded by the conduct of an open hearing, in particular before its holiday fundraising drive. It further argued that an application for inspection under section 214 was an “investigatory proceeding” in which it was more likely that “incomplete and misleading” subject matter would be aired.

The Court disagreed with the corporation. Although harm to the corporation’s vulnerable clientele could constitute a “serious risk to an important public interest” (as required for a discretionary order that limits openness), the corporation’s case for harm was too speculative, lacking particulars as to when and what clients would likely be affected. In rejecting the corporation’s broader argument about investigatory proceedings, the Court said, “The open courtprinciple applies to all manner of proceedings, absent valid legislation which limits its application.”

Windels v Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 2022 SKCA 72 (CanLII)https://canlii.ca/t/jpw4q.

What’s not to say about Sherman Estate?

We all know that the Supreme Court of Canada decided Sherman Estate v Donavan on June 11th. I just got to it today, and was surprised at its significance to information and privacy law beyond the open courts principle itself. Here is a quick note on its three most salient broader points.

The Court held that records filed in court by estate trustees seeking probate ought not to have been sealed given the presumption of openness that applies to all court proceedings. In doing so, however, it recognized for the first time that privacy alone (whether or not it encourages access to justice) could be “an important public interest” that warrants a departure from the presumption.

Point one – sensitive information is information linked to the biographical core

Most significantly, the Court said that not any privacy interest will qualify. Privacy is such a subjective, difficult and confused concept that many individuals with genuinely felt “sensibilities” must be precluded from claiming that their privacy interest weighs against the openness of a court proceeding. A privacy interest only qualifies as “an important public interest” if the information at stake is “sufficiently sensitive such that it can be said to strike at the biographical core of the individual.”

The biographical core is a concept first articulated in R v Plant in 1993 and has since been criticized by privacy advocates as a concept that limits privacy protection. Yet here it is, front and centre as the limitation on privacy that will now protect the transparency of our justice system. The Court links the biographical core to the protection of human dignity, as it explains in the following paragraph:

Violations of privacy that cause a loss of control over fundamental personal information about oneself are damaging to dignity because they erode one’s ability to present aspects of oneself to others in a selective manner (D. Matheson, “Dignity and Selective Self-Presentation”, in I. Kerr, V. Steeves and C. Lucock, eds., Lessons from the Identity Trail: Anonymity, Privacy and Identity in a Networked Society (2009), 319, at pp. 327‑28; L. M. Austin, “Re-reading Westin” (2019), 20 Theor. Inq. L. 53, at pp. 66‑68; Eltis (2016), at p. 13). Dignity, used in this context, is a social concept that involves presenting core aspects of oneself to others in a considered and controlled manner (see generally Matheson, at pp. 327‑28; Austin, at pp. 66‑68). Dignity is eroded where individuals lose control over this core identity‑giving information about themselves, because a highly sensitive aspect of who they are that they did not consciously decide to share is now available to others and may shape how they are seen in public. This was even alluded to by La Forest J., dissenting but not on this point, in Dagg, where he referred to privacy as “[a]n expression of an individual’s unique personality or personhood” (para. 65).

The term “fundamental personal information” used here is sure to be re-used by privacy defence counsel to deal with disputes about sensitivity. And although the Court stressed again and again that its reasoning was made for the open courts context, we need the authority. The concept of sensitivity is as confused as any aspect of privacy law. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada finds personal information to be sensitive in virtually every one of its reports. It has found home address information sensitive, for example, yet the Ontario Superior Court of Justice held that home address information doesn’t warrant common law privacy protection. Sherman Estate is going to be helpful to those of us who are striving for a clear and predictable boundary to privacy claims.

Point two – the concept of privacy is a mess

The Court has already said that privacy is “somewhat evanescent” (Dagg) and “protean” (Tessling), and has noted that scholars have criticized privacy as being a concept in “theoretical disarray” (Spencer). In Sherman Estate, the Court revisits this criticism and, for the first time, clearly applies it to limit the scope of privacy protection. It says:

Further, recognizing an important interest in privacy generally could prove to be too open‑ended and difficult to apply. Privacy is a complex and contextual concept (Dagg, at para. 67;see also B. McIsaac, K. Klein and S. Brown, The Law of Privacy in Canada (loose‑leaf), vol. 1, at pp. 1‑4;D. J. Solove, “Conceptualizing Privacy” (2002), 90 Cal. L. Rev. 1087, at p. 1090). Indeed, this Court has described the nature of limits of privacy as being in a state of “theoretical disarray” (R. v. Spencer, 2014 SCC 43, [2014] 2 S.C.R. 212, at para. 35). Much turns on the context in which privacy is invoked. I agree with the Toronto Star that a bald recognition of privacy as an important interest in the context of the test for discretionary limits on court openness, as the Trustees advance here, would invite considerable confusion. It would be difficult for courts to measure a serious risk to such an interest because of its multi-faceted nature.

This is another very important paragraph for privacy defence counsel. I have relied on the first chapter of Daniel Solove’s Understanding Privacy more than once in a factum as a means of inviting a conservative response to a novel privacy matter. Now we have clear Supreme Court of Canada authority on point.

Yes I am arguing against privacy protection, but it is because I deeply crave clarity. Organizations are faced all manner of novel and bold privacy claims, the merits of which are too difficult to assess. We need a clearly defined limit to what counts as a privacy interest worthy of legal protection, whatever it is. This is another reason Sherman Estate is good: the first step to healing is to admit you have a problem!

Point three – a step towards unification, and a half step back

This is why it is so disappointing that the Court keeps saying that privacy is in theoretical disarray without taking up the challenge of fixing the problem.

As I’ve explained, it repeatedly tied its reasoning to the open courts context, and although it took the novel step of relying on Charter jurisprudence to help with its delineation, the Court felt it necessary to make clear that a reasonable expectation of privacy protected by section 8 of the Charter is different.

I pause here to note that I refer to cases on s. 8 of the Charter above for the limited purpose of providing insight into types of information that are more or less personal and therefore deserving of public protection. If the impact on dignity as a result of disclosure is to be accurately measured, it is critical that the analysis differentiate between information in this way. Helpfully, one factor in determining whether an applicant’s subjective expectation of privacy is objectively reasonable in the s. 8 jurisprudence focuses on the degree to which information is private (see, e.g., R. v.Marakah, 2017 SCC 59, [2017] 2 S.C.R. 608, at para. 31; Cole, at paras. 44‑46). But while these decisions may assist for this limited purpose, this is not to say that the remainder of the s. 8 analysis has any relevance to the application of the test for discretionary limits on court openness.

Privacy shouldn’t have a different meaning in the open courts context and the Charter context and the common law/civil context. Why should it? It’s a fundamental right is it not? Has all the talk about contextual significance caused us to be too conservative? Lazy, even? Certainly facts can be assessed in their proper context under a unified concept?

We have unified our reading of differently worded anti-discrimination statutes to provide for clear and strong law across the Country given the importance of human rights protection. I fail to see why we are so hesitant to unify our privacy law.

Sherman Estate is therefore a good decision in my eyes, but not great, and there is more work to be done.

Sherman Estate v. Donovan, 2021 SCC 25 (CanLII).

[This is a personal blog, and these are my views alone. They do not reflect the views of my firm or colleagues.]

Fed CA orders removal of witness names in administrative tribunal decision

On September 30th, the Federal Court of Appeal held that the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board ought not to have referred to witnesses by name in a disciplinary decision about a suspension for “inappropriate acts involving a number of young female subordinate employees.”

This was a second time the matter of the witnesses’ anonymity came before the Court. In 2017, it had held that the Board’s decision to publish witness names was unreasonable and directed the Board to re-weigh the interests at stake.

The Board again declined to refer to witnesses by initials, seemingly put off by the employer’s pre-hearing “promise” to the witnesses that their identities would be protected from publication. What the employer said to the witnesses, the Court held, was not right inquiry. For that and other reasons, it quashed the Board’s second decision as unreasonable and (extraordinarily) substituted its own judgement.

Here are two points of significance:

the Court suggested that the (strict) Dagenais/Mentuck test applied by courts is the test to be applied by administrative tribunals like the Board; and
the Court recognized the public interest in encouraging the reporting of inappropriate sexual behavior by protecting the anonymity of witness, comparing the interest to the interest in encouraging the reporting of sexual assaults.

Canada (Attorney General) v. Philps, 2019 FCA 240 (CanLII).

Transparency, open courts and administrative tribunals: implications of Toronto Star v AG Ontario

Here’s some commentary I submitted in support of my panel appearance on Wednesday at the above-named OBA conference.

It appears there are not too many fans of the Toronto Star decision among administrative tribunal practitioners, though the tribunals themselves seem to be more ambivalent. I’m among those who don’t like the policy implications of Toronto Star. For insight please read my commentary.

On Wednesday I spoke about the practical impact of practicing under truly presumptive, court-like openness in which no adjudicative decision (with due process rights) stands between a requester and a client’s filings. In short, it will invite the application of a new analysis prior to making any filing. What in here is confidential? Can I compromise – making my client’s case without it? At what cost? Is it better to seek a confidentiality order of some sort? At what cost? Does the media require notice of my motion? At what cost? Did I mention cost?

I encouraged tribunal staff in attendance to think about how critical a concern privacy has become and how individuals expect and are owed, at a minimum, due process. In my view requiring applications for access (made on notice) is a model for access that’s more consistent with the object of administrative justice – specialized, low cost, accessible justice.

Ontario Court says FOI statute fails in providing access to administrative tribunal records

Yesterday the Ontario Superior Court of Justice held that the Ontario Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act violates section 2(b) of the Charter because it goes too far to protect the privacy of parties, witnesses and others in matters heard by the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, Ontario Labour Relations Boards and other statutory tribunals.

The Toronto Star brought the Charter application. It argued that the access regime created by FIPPA is too restrictive and too slow to meet its Charter-based right of access to “adjudicative records” – records of things filed before tribunals like pleadings and exhibits as well as tribunal decisions. A number of Ontario tribunals process requests for adjudicative records formally under FIPPA while others provide access more informally. The Star argued that the informal process must be the norm.

Justice Morgan allowed the application and declared that FIPPA violates the Charter by imposing a presumption of non-disclosure of “personal information” in adjudicative records. It is a puzzling decision for two reasons.

First, there is virtually no discussion about whether the open courts principle ought to apply to administrative tribunals. The Court’s application of the open courts principle appears to be derived from a provision requiring openness in the Statutory Powers Procedure Act:

All parties acknowledge that administrative hearings governed by the Statutory Powers Procedure Act (“SPPA”) are required to be open to the public. In principle, therefore, it is uncontroversial that “[t]he ‘open court’ principle” – at least in some version – “is a cornerstone of accountability for decision-making tribunals and courts.”

One might argue that the Court elevates a statutory presumption (which ought to be read in harmony with FIPPA) into a constitutional right. One might also argue that there are policy imperatives for administrative justice that weigh against recognition, in respect of tribunals, of the same level of openness that applies to courts – expediency and ease of access, for example. These two imperatives in particular are likely to suffer if administrative tribunal records are treated similarly to court records.

Second, the Court’s decision rests on what it says is a flawed “presumption of non-disclosure” – one that makes personal information in adjudicative records presumptively inaccessible. According to the Court this presumption arises out of the framing of FIPPA’s section 21 “unjustified invasion of privacy exemption,” which states that personal information shall be withheld unless its disclosure would not constitute an “unjustified invasion of privacy.”

It is too strong to call this a presumption, particularly in light of section 53 of FIPPA, which states, “Where a head refuses access to a record or a part of a record, the burden of proof that the record or the part falls within one of the specified exemptions in this Act lies upon the head.” To the contrary, all records in an institution’s custody or control are presumptively accessible under FIPPA, with limitations on the right of access dictated to be “limited and specific” as stipulated FIPPA’s purpose provision.

It’s quite arguable that FIPPA grants a right of access subject to a balancing of interests that has been carefully calibrated by the legislature and ultimately governed by an expert tribunal – the Information Privacy Commissioner/Ontario. Justice Morgan did not hide his views about the IPC, stating “In terms of the expertise of the institution heads and, in particular, the IPC, it is fair to say that the jury is still out. ”

Toronto Star v. AG Ontario, 2018 ONSC 2586.

Court sends matter back to arbitrator to consider redaction request

On September 13th, the Federal Court of Appeal held that the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board was not functus officio and ought to have entertained an employer’s request to redact witness names.

The employer claimed it made an unopposed request to obscure the identities of several non-union witnesses during the Board’s hearing. When the Board issued a decision that included full names, the employer wrote the Board and asked for a correction. The Board disagreed that the employer had made a request during the hearing and held it was functus officio. The employer brought an application for judicial review, compounding the problem by filing an un-redacted copy of the decision on the Court’s public record.

The Court accepted affidavit evidence from the employer and held that it had, in fact, made an unopposed request during the hearing. Alternatively, the Court held that the Board had the power to amend its decision based on section 43 of the Public Service Labour Relations Act. The Court also ordered that its record be treated as confidential and that the applicant file new materials with witness names replaced by initials, stating, “So doing provides little, if any, derogation to the open courts principle as [the witnesses’s] identities are not germane to the decisions.”

This is an unfortunate example of (a) rising sensitivities regarding the inclusion of personal information in judicial and administrative decisions and (b) the need to be careful about it. This affair (which shall continue) could have been avoided if the parties had asked the Board to make a formal order during course of the hearing. The employer also ought to have brought a motion for a sealing order at the outset of its judicial review application, before filing un-redacted materials (a point that the Court made in its decision).

Hat tip to Ian Mackenzie.

Canada (Attorney General) v Philps, 2017 FCA 178 (CanLII).

Court won’t redact or take down its decision

On September 7th, the Court of Appeal for British Columbia dismissed an application to have part of its reasons redacted or to have the reasons withdrawn from the Court’s website.

The applicant believed that part of the reasons – released in 2004 – were harmful to his reputation, a problem he said was facilitated by internet search. The Court dismissed the application because redaction would offend the principle of finality. It held that redaction alone would effectively amount to an amendment of the Court’s (substantive) conclusions. (This is a non-obvious point of principle of some significance.) The Court also relied on the open courts principle, which it affirmed.

MacGougan v. Barraclough, 2017 BCCA 321 (CanLII).

BCCA says arbitrators have discretion to identify grievors despite PIPA

On August 12th the Court of Appeal for British Columbia held that British Columbia labour arbitrators are bound by British Columbia’s provincial private sector privacy legislation but do not need consent to collect, use or disclose grievor and witness personal information.

This was an appeal of a decision by Arbitrator Lanyon issued in October 2013. Mr. Lanyon dismissed a union claim that the Personal Information Protection Act prevents arbitrators from disclosing personal information of individuals in a final decision without their consent. Mr. Lanyon made his decision on multiple bases, perhaps because the union had put him on notice that it would appeal any unfavourable decision!

The Court of Appeal’s decision is much more simple. It held that PIPA applies to labour arbitrators when the term “organization” is read purposely. It then held that disclosure without consent is “required or authorized by law” based on a provision in the Labour Relations Code that requires arbitrators to file a copy of their awards for publication. Although this provision does not specifically require the filing of an award that includes personal information, the Court said:

It is difficult to see how a decision-maker, who is obliged to provide reasons that are subject to various levels of review, could possibly avoid disclosing personal information, as required by PIPA. The suggestion of the Union of using initials would not, in many cases, comply with the requirements of PIPA.

Arbitrators, the Court noted, have a discretion to use initials of parties or witness to protect privacy interests or “however they see fit.”

This is a matter in which the outcome reached by Mr. Lanyon and the Court of Appeal is very sensible and supportable on a policy-based analysis. One may question, however, whether the Court of Appeal’s simplistic basis for determining the matter is open to attack.

United Food & Commercial Workers Union, Local 1518 v Sunrise Poultry Processors Ltd, 2015 BCCA 354 (CanLII).