The City of Medicine Hat says it will respond to a resident's information requests. Eli J. Ridder/CHAT News

By Eli J. Ridder

FOIP

Medicine Hat disagrees with privacy commissioner over access request workload but will comply

May 17, 2024 | 1:15 PM

The City of Medicine Hat on Friday disagreed with a provincial assessment that responding to a set of information requests made by a resident will not overextend its resources but made it clear it will still comply with the order.

“We respectfully disagree with the assertion that responding to the access requests will require limited resources and time of staff,” City Manager Ann Mitchell said in a statement to CHAT News.

“Based on our assessment, the unprecedented nature and scope of these requests indicate that a more substantial allocation of resources will be necessary to ensure thorough and timely responses.”

The information and privacy commissioner denied the city’s request to disregard a series of five requests from resident Nicole Frey made under Alberta’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

READ: Alberta official denies city’s ask to ignore resident’s information requests

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Mitchell said fulfilling the FOIP Act requests will take time and money.

“The scope and complexity of these requests necessitate a substantial allocation of resources, both in terms of human resources and the associated financial investment,” Mitchell said.

City Manager Ann Mitchell listens to a council discussion at a 2024 public meeting. Eli J. Ridder/CHAT News

“As such, the city is confronted with a unique challenge in meeting the demands posed by these requests within the timeframe outlined in the FOIP Act.”

The resources required to get the information Frey is asking for could rise to such a level that staff could need to ask for council approval to allocate extra taxpayer cash on the effort.

“It is important to emphasize that any additional resources required to fulfill these requests will need to be approved by city council, underscoring the city’s commitment to the prudent use of taxpayer dollars,” Mitchell explained.

Medicine Hat on Feb. 12 asked the province to give permission to the city to disregard Frey’s requests, a power the commissioner is granted through the FOIP Act.

Medicine Hat wanted to ignore the requests due to their “repetitious and systematic nature, the fact that their frequency and length unreasonably interfere with the operations of the municipality, they amount to an abuse of the right to make such requests and they cross into the realm of being frivolous and vexatious.”

Privacy commissioner Diane McLeod refuted the city’s reasoning that the access requests abused the act and said it did not provide enough evidence as to why fulfilling the requests would “unreasonably interfere” with its operations.

In a rigorous 15-page response to the city steeped in statutory references, McLeod said that, just because an information request can interrupt regular city business, the municipality should not use that as a reason to ask for an exemption.

“It will usually be the case that a request for information will pose some disruption or inconvenience to a public body; that is not cause to keep information from a citizen exercising his or her democratic and quasi-constituitional rights,” McLeod wrote in her response.

READ: Information and privacy commissioner’s response

“I am not satisfied, on the basis of the evidence provided to me, that responding to these access requests will unreasonably interfere with the public body’s operations,” she added further in the letter.

Frey said Thursday she felt “vindicated” by the privacy commissioner’s response.

In response to Mitchell’s statement, Frey said she anticipates hearing more about the timeline and costing to her five requests.

“I invite the city to reply to my email from yesterday where, at the advice of the OIPC office, I sought timeline information from them on providing the information requested, and to also included a detailed fee breakdown so we can all see what is costing what,” Frey said.

What was filed?

Frey has long been critical of council.

During skyrocketing electricity prices in summer 2023, she was a leader of the widespread backlash council received from the community.

In October, Frey launched a petition to recall Mayor Linnsie Clark that did not gain the required signatures — 40 per cent of the city’s population — to remove the mayor.

Since fall of last year, Frey has filed a total eight freedom of information and privacy requests. Only five of the requests were considered part of the scope of the commissioner’s response letter.

Here’s a summary of Frey’s five requests:

• Jan. 5 — information about bonuses, severance and termination pay; council salary information; estimated cost for preparing council’s interim report; and city contracts in place with a third-party service provider.
• Jan. 5 — any correspondence between council and senior staff that mentions Frey — the city said this would require redactions for 1,256 internal emails.
• Jan. 21 — employment contract and other information for former city manager Merete Heggelund.
• Feb. 5 — a variety of city policies and bylaws, job descriptions and organizational charts, among other items.
• Feb. 5 — copies of the correspondence, meeting and conversation records related to why the city manager asked the city clerk resend the letter reminding Frey about the communications ban.

Frey has filed several more FOIP requests in the months since February, according to files sent to members of the media. The city has petitioned the privacy commissioner to disregard those, too.