Freedom (of Information) Isn't Free

by: Jonathan Goldsbie

August 12, 2008 6:26 PM

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A Freedom of Information (FOI) request should be a last resort. It is often a time-consuming and frustrating process. In that respect, it is not too different from any other method of extracting information from the City of Toronto. But, unlike other approaches, it also costs money — usually not too much, but it quickly adds up. Fees associated with FOI requests are the biggest expenses of both the Toronto Public Space Committee and IllegalSigns.ca.

So if you want information you think the city has, first you should try the website. Then you should phone up the relevant bureaucrats and political staff. Then do broader web searches and, if necessary, look through the online newspaper archives to which your Toronto Public Library card gets you free access. Try the Toronto Archives and the Urban Affairs Library and the U of T libraries. If you still can't get the answers you're looking for, then it's time to become acquainted with the Corporate Access and Privacy (CAP) unit of the City Clerk's Office.

An FOI request is like a deep search. Under the provisions of the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (MFIPPA), a 1990 provincial law, municipalities and their agencies, boards, and commissions (including transit commissions, police services boards, and library boards), as well as school boards, are required to make available to the public all records in their possession, with certain limited exceptions. Upon receipt of a formal request, the institution is obligated to search its holdings until it can turn up what you're looking for. This sounds much more convenient than it actually is.

Go to the website of the CAP office and download the PDF of the request form. Unless you're looking for information specifically about yourself (such as all mentions of your name in email correspondence between city staff), check off "Access to General Records." Next to "Identify Division" put down the name of the city department most likely to be keeping the records for which you're looking. This helps the access and privacy officer get started, but if you're not sure, just leave it blank. If you know a "Unit Name," you can put that, too, but don't worry about the "Location." Ignore "Other Institution," and check off "Receive Copy."

In the box asking for a "Detailed description" of the records, provide exactly that. There is an art to it, though; the request shouldn't be so broad as to cost you a fortune, nor should it be so narrow that it only nets you a fraction of what you want. If the information is about a particular property, include the precise address. (This map gives addresses for all lots in the city.) If it's records concerning a particular meeting or contract, give the year. If a document has been alluded to by a staff person or another document, use the same descriptive phrase. Ramble if you must. Try to describe just what it is that you want to get back. To learn about the legal status of the billboards down the street from me, for example, I requested "All documents pertaining to sign permits relating to 4155 Yonge Street, including the approved plans for signs; and a computer print-out listing all building permits of any sort issued to this property." From that, I got most of what I wanted (after some follow-up phone calls, I learned that Toronto Building's North York District office had lost or misplaced all of the original diagrams and plans) but enough for my purposes. There will be a good deal of trial and error involved until you figure out precisely how to phrase a request for the sorts of things you want, but if the access officer is really unclear on what you're looking for, he or she will give you a call to try to straighten it out.

When you've filled out the form, you can mail it in with a cheque for $5, payable to the City of Toronto, but I prefer dropping it off in person — that way, you know precisely when they receive it, and you also have the option of paying with cash, debit, or credit card. Take the form and your money to the Registry Services office at the southwest corner of the City Hall rotunda, which closes at precisely 4:15 every weekday afternoon. (You can also go to one of the civic centres.) If you're with another person, the odds are good that the staff will think you're there to get a marriage license, since issuing such things appears to be 90 per cent of what they do. Hang on to the receipt and the photocopy of the request that they'll make for you; these may become necessary later.

The people at the CAP office, on the 13th floor of City Hall's west tower, are perhaps the most oppressively overburdened civil servants at an oppressively overburdened institution. They are legally required to respond to your request within 30 days of receiving it (even if just to say that they need more time), but that may or may not happen. The office is absurdly understaffed and as such is woefully unequipped to meet the demands of MFIPPA. Still, the staff try their hardest, but an amount of patience is required. Especially if a third party is somehow involved with the records you're requesting (say you're looking for the contract between the city and a particular corporation), prepare for a drawn-out process.

Let's just assume, though, that things go as they should and that no third parties are involved. Within a month, you should get a decision letter from the CAP office informing you what they've found and what they're prepared to release. They can grant full or partial access to records, or can deny you everything. If you're getting full access, the letter will state how much you owe the city for photocopying costs, at a rate of 20¢ a page. If you're getting partial access, there will also be a fee levied for "severance" (i.e. redaction) of stuff to which they don't believe you're entitled. That costs $30 for each hour of work, and they estimate that it takes two minutes to do a single page, so it works out to $1 for each page from which something has to be removed. (They usually don't charge for a page that has to be excised in its entirety.)

If the total fee works out to less than $10, the charges are waived and the stuff is sent in the mail with the decision letter. If the fee is $10 or greater, then you've got to send them a cheque before they'll mail out the records. Alternatively, you can arrange to pick up the records in person at their office and pay by cash (they don't have a proper cash register up there, so try to have close to exact change). If a fee is pretty high (or even if it's not), you may want to exercise the option of viewing the records in person at City Hall before deciding what parts, if any, you think are worth obtaining copies of. You only have to pay for what you take, and you're free to bring in a camera and take photos of the documents, rather than paying to have them photocopied (though unless you really trust your camera, I don't recommend this).

If you've gotten what you hoped for, that's it: the system worked, the government is transparent, and the Clerk's office is as efficient and responsive as they claim to be — this being the City of Toronto, you should consider yourself lucky. Otherwise, you've barely even started.

Jonathan Goldsbie is a campaigner with the Toronto Public Space Committee.

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Freedom (of Information) Isn't Free