$1,318 fee for TOSH renovation documents 'not reasonably calculated,' says privacy commissioner
Government put a steep price tag on documents a cabinet minister later told a parent she was ‘welcome to’
P.E.I.'s information and privacy commissioner says the province over-calculated fees by hundreds of dollars in response to two requests for documents related to renovations at Three Oaks Senior High School.
Toby MacDonald said she requested the documents on behalf of a group of parents concerned their children's health may have been affected by dust they inhaled during the renovations.
MacDonald said she's filed 15 access requests so far in her ongoing quest for answers about what took place.
But never before has the province required her to pay for the information she was seeking, beyond the normal $5 to file a request.
In this case the initial demand was that MacDonald pay $710 to the Department of Transportation, and a further $608 to the Public Schools Branch to access the documents in question.
"There shouldn't be a bounty on this information," said MacDonald. "To pay over $1,000 for information that belongs to Islanders.… Not only my child but hundreds of children went through this.… We should have the right of transparency, accessibility and accountability to this information."
Parents, students not advised of asbestos breach
Test results — released following previous access-to-information requests filed by both MacDonald and CBC — showed air quality at times during the renovations did not meet Health Canada guidelines.
And documents previously released have also shown that in March of 2017 the Workers Compensation Board issued a stop-work order because of the high level of asbestos contamination during construction — something parents and students were not told about at the time.
In late 2018 the province's Chief Public Health Office released a report concluding there were no significant health risks to students.
Toby, if you think that we have stuff that you don't have, you're more than welcome to it.— Transportation, Infrastructure and Energy Minister Steven Myers
In the two requests reviewed by the privacy commissioner, MacDonald asked for copies of environmental tests which haven't yet been made public, and correspondence between the Department of Transportation and the environmental services company contracted to conduct the testing.
She also requested correspondence from the head of the Public Schools Branch discussing the renovations and environmental risks. That request was made more than a year ago now.
MacDonald initially asked government to waive the $1,318 total in fees, arguing she couldn't afford to pay it, and that the information in the documents would serve the public interest.
Fee estimates 'unreasonable,' commissioner finds
The province agreed to reduce the fees to $528. MacDonald appealed to the privacy commissioner, who ordered government further reduce the fees to $261.75.
Commissioner Karen Rose found the original fee estimates were not "reasonably calculated."
Rose wrote in her decision that government's estimates on how long it would take to retrieve and prepare the documents were "unreasonable" in their length.
And she disagreed with government's assessment that only a small percentage of the records in question deal with a matter of public interest, and are therefore subject to a fee waiver.
She wrote the records may contain information that will show how government "reached decisions during the renovation, such as how to respond to environmental reports, or whether to advise parents or students when new information was received" and will thus, "contribute to an open, transparent, and accountable government."
No more charging for info, says minister
In the legislature two weeks before the commissioner's report was released — and with MacDonald watching from the gallery — Transportation, Infrastructure and Energy Minister Steven Myers told the House that "hundreds of pages of information" to do with the Three Oaks renovations had been released through access to information.
"There's nothing that I'm hiding.… Toby, if you think that we have stuff that you don't have, you're more than welcome to it."
On Wednesday, three weeks after the commissioner issued her ruling, MacDonald said she was notified the Department of Transportation is now prepared to waive its entire fee of $108.75 as revised by the commissioner, leaving MacDonald to pay only the $153 to the Public Schools Branch.
Myers now says he's told his department not to charge anything for access requests "unless there's a good reason why."
"It's not the bureaucrats and it's not the elected government that owns that information or owns those records," Myers said. "They belong to all Islanders so I don't see any reason why we shouldn't be sharing the information."
MacDonald's initial access requests were filed while the Liberals were in power, but the appeal process continued through the transition that put Myers and the PCs into government.
Pieces of a puzzle
In January, MacDonald expects to finally receive hundreds of pages of documents as a result of these two access requests, adding the pages to the 10-15 binders of documents she's already assembled.
"We're trying to put our puzzle pieces together. We don't have a full picture yet of what occurred," she said.
In particular she wants to know what factors led to the decision not to inform students and parents about breaches in protocol during asbestos and lead removal while students were in the school.
"It's not to, you know, lay blame.… We're trying to stop that from happening at other schools in the future."
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