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Petition that Section 13 of British Columbia’s Freedom of Information Legislation FOIPPA be removed.

Petition link: https://www.change.org/p/that-section-13-of-british-columbia-s-freedom-of-information-legislation-foippa-be-removed

Text of the petition:

We the signed, in the interests of true transparency and democracy, call upon the Province of British Columbia to remove Section 13 from the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPPA).

Background:

Redaction or severing of information, is a form of government censorship, which is used to hide information from the public.

In some cases this is justified to protect privacy of members of the public, or to protect highly sensitive information of national importance.  However, often, if not most of the time, redaction is used as a convenient tool to allow governments to hide from the public, what they don’t want them to see (cover-ups), which is undemocratic. 

The most convenient and undemocratic tool in British Columbia’s censorship toolbox is Section 13 of FOIPPA. 

Section 13 runs contrary to the spirit of freedom of information.  It is actually the opposite.  It is a tool wide open to abuse, that allows the BC government to conveniently hide from the public, information (“Policy advice or recommendations”) that it does not want them to see, through the guise of labeling the information as being open to “excessive scrutiny”.  Who gets to arbitrarily define excessive?  The government officials themselves.

Here is how the government describes Section 13 of FOIPPA:

Section 13 – Policy advice or recommendations – Province of British Columbia

“Section 13 is a discretionary exception to the right of access to information.  It permits public bodies to withhold information that would reveal advice or recommendations developed by or for a public body or a minister.

Section 13 is intended to allow full and frank discussion of policy issues within the public service, preventing the harm which would occur if the deliberative process were subject to excessive scrutiny.”

In other words, Section 13, can be used to hide vast amounts of lobbying material and it can be used to hide government discussing lobbying material; which it is very frequently used for.  Section 13 also enables the provincial government to hide from the public, the impact and process of how lobbying leads to and influences the formation of public policy.  This is a major issue of public concern regarding critical lack of transparency regarding the development of government policy.

This is not transparency.  This is not in the public interest.  It is undemocratic.

Although Section 13. 2(a) does not allowing the hiding of “any factual information”, this has been circumvented in practice. Subsequent decisions made regarding S.13, as the OIPC noted (p.6-7), have allowed the hiding of factual information, an activity, which may not be in the public interest. For example, scientific solutions to important public issues (e.g. health) could be sequestered from public view and access. 

I have also noted the same in regard to potential solutions to housing affordability, which are in the public interest to know, and which were extensively censored in a Freedom of Information request for the housing solutions found by the former Housing Solutions Advisor to the Premier.

This is not true freedom of information.

As the Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia (OIPC) put it in the Submission to the Special Committee to Review the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act:

“Section 13 of FIPPA allows public bodies to withhold information that would reveal “policy advice or recommendations.” Over time, in response to public body arguments and court decisions, this provision has been interpreted in a manner that has eroded the public’s right of access.”

Statutory Review of the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act: OIPC Submission to the Special Committee to Review the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act March 2022


For more information, please contact BCPetition@mail.com


Note: Please do not donate to this petition, even if Change.org asks.  The money goes to Change.org, not towards the petition.  

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References:  

Section 13 of FOIPPA:

Policy advice or recommendations


13   (1)The head of a public body may refuse to disclose to an applicant information that would reveal advice or recommendations developed by or for a public body or a minister.

(2)The head of a public body must not refuse to disclose under subsection (1)

(a)any factual material,

(b)a public opinion poll,

(c)a statistical survey,

(d)an appraisal,

(e)an economic forecast,

(f)an environmental impact statement or similar information,

(g)a final report or final audit on the performance or efficiency of a public body or on any of its policies or its programs or activities,

(h)a consumer test report or a report of a test carried out on a product to test equipment of the public body,

(i)a feasibility or technical study, including a cost estimate, relating to a policy or project of the public body,

(j)a report on the results of field research undertaken before a policy proposal is formulated,

(k)a report of a task force, committee, council or similar body that has been established to consider any matter and make reports or recommendations to a public body,

(l)a plan or proposal to establish a new program or activity or to change a program or activity, if the plan or proposal has been approved or rejected by the head of the public body,

(m)information that the head of the public body has cited publicly as the basis for making a decision or formulating a policy, or

(n)a decision, including reasons, that is made in the exercise of a discretionary power or an adjudicative function and that affects the rights of the applicant.

(3)Subsection (1) does not apply to information in a record that has been in existence for 10 or more years.


Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act

Statutory Review of the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act: OIPC Submission to the Special Committee to Review the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act March 2022  (p.6-7)

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See also: Freedom of Information reveals that the Province of B.C. was working to implement what the registered lobbying organization, the Urban Development Institute, had been pushing for. This culminated in the recent Housing Bills that override local government authority on zoning.  – CRD Watch Homepage