i Submission to the Review of Nova Scotia’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Legislation Introduction1 The Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) welcomes the fact that the Government of Nova Scotia is conducting a review of the legal framework for access to information,2 which is centred around the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPOP Act).3 The Act was origina. [...] Recommendations § As part of the current review, the government should look more closely into the pros and cons of integrating proactive publication requirements – both as to the minimum content of information which is subject to publication and as to standards regarding the nature and promotion of that information – into the law. [...] Section 10 provides for the transfer of requests from one public body to another, within ten days, if the request is for a record which was produced by or for the other public body, the other public body was the first to obtain the record or “the record is in the custody or under the control of the other public body”. [...] This allows a public body to disclose information, whether or not a request for that information has been made, notwithstanding any other provision of the Act, where the information is about a “risk of significant harm to the environment or to the health or safety of the public or a group of people” or the disclosure of the information is “clearly in the public interest”. [...] This is unreasonable both because of the human rights nature of access to information and because, taking into account the complex nature of the test for release of personal information, the public body is in a far better position to bear the burden of proof (including because it knows what exactly the information consists of, whereas the applicant can only guess at this).
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- Published in
- Canada
