Latest news with #FreedomofInformationandProtectionofPrivacyAct
Calgary Herald
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Calgary Herald
Sparks fly in council over bodycam bills, speed cams
There's good news — the province is picking up the tab to equip Edmonton police officers with 280 body cams and the software to operate them, after the switch from dashboard cams to body-worn cameras. Article content Article content The bad news is the city could be on the hook for a small army of 40 people to monitor them, and to redact for confidentiality issues when footage is required for the Crown or the public. Article content Article content Listening to the Edmonton Police Service annual report, Mayor Amarjeet Sohi called the bill 'shocking' and saw one more piece of evidence that the province is stiffing Edmonton taxpayers. Article content Article content 'What concerns me is that province continues to download policing cost onto municipalities. The province mandated that these officers wear body cameras, and my understanding was that they will recover the full cost. What I'm hearing today is that the back-end cost of those body cameras, we will be required — EPS will be required — to hire close to 30 to 40 people to monitor the cameras … to keep all the content together,' Sohi said. Article content Section 33C and 33B of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act authorizes the collection of information from the public. Article content The recordings are disclosed to the courts when required, but private information of third parties captured in any recording is first redacted. Article content Article content Legally, officers are not required to inform the public they are being recorded during an interaction, but they are trained to do so when they can, the EPS website said. Article content Body-worn video was mandated by the Government of Alberta in March 2023 for all police agencies. Article content About the size of a deck of cards, the camera is worn on the front of the uniform. Article content The officers activate recording with audio and video during interactions with the public 'when the nature of the interaction is known to be, or become, investigative or enforcement related in nature.' Article content When the cameras are actively recording, the officers' body-worn camera will illuminate red lights. Article content Some 35 officers on EPS' encampment response teams, community safety teams, and transit and community safety teams began wearing cameras in July 2023. Article content The EPS began servicewide implementation of body-worn video in September. In a phased approach, a total of 280 officers were outfitted in the areas of public safety unit, crime auppression branch, various patrol branches, Whyte Avenue beats, gang suppression, the commercial vehicle investigation unit and the traffic enforcement section.
Cision Canada
14-05-2025
- Health
- Cision Canada
Who do you serve, actually? National transparency groups call out Vancouver Coastal Health for restricting information during the COVID-19 pandemic
TORONTO, May 14, 2025 /CNW/ - Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH), the public agency responsible for delivering community and acute care services to more than a quarter of B.C.'s population, has been selected as the 2024 recipient of the municipal Code of Silence Award for Outstanding Achievement in Government Secrecy for its routine breaking of access to information laws during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a Sept. 2024 report, Michael Harvey, B.C.'s Information and Privacy Commissioner, found multiple examples of how the health authority failed to meet the province's standards. For example, the audit found only a quarter of public requests met the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act's 30-day response benchmark. In almost three quarters of responses, VCH failed to comply with the Act's time limits. This resulted in the agency sometimes extending the time limit without a valid reason or the agency applied an extension to respond even after the original time limit to respond had already passed. About one-third of the time, the authority did not even acknowledge a request for information was received. "The COVID-19 pandemic placed a premium on timely access to medical information to combat the virus," said Philip Tunley, a director of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE). "In a profession usually committed to informed decision-making by patients and to doing no harm, VHC miserably failed to rise to that basic challenge." In his report, Harvey acknowledged that while VCH was under unprecedented pressures during the pandemic, the audit also pointed to other more systemic problems. These included: Following a 2021 amendment to FIPPA, VCH, like other public bodies, decided to charge a $10 FOI application fee for general access requests. VCH administered this fee by only accepting payment by cheque or money order, unnecessarily exacerbating the barrier to access. The agency later changed this approach. VCH has a policy for routinely releasing certain records without the need for an FOI request, also known as proactive disclosure. However, contrary to this policy, there were instances where VCH processed requests for these records as an FOI request and charged the application fee, rather than pointing applicants to where the records were already publicly available. Further, some records that were already public were difficult to find online. VCH was particularly unresponsive to the media during this period. The average number of days it took to respond to FOI requests from the media was 116 days, peaking at 171 days in 2021/2022. Upon completion of the audit, Harvey made eight recommendations to improve VCH's compliance with B.C.'s FIPPA rules. These recommendations included expediting communication with individuals seeking information, and strengthening policies around records management. This year's Code of Silence jury also agreed to bestow a dishonourable mention to the Region of Waterloo, located in the heart of southwestern Ontario's greenbelt. Community groups and journalists have faced an up-hill battle to get access to information from the region on a controversial mega-project that will impact local farmland. The challenge of building consensus and citizen engagement in rural communities becomes impossible when responsible agencies withhold information about projects of this nature," Tunley said. The Code of Silence Awards are presented annually by the CAJ, the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University (CFE), and the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE). The awards call public attention to government or publicly-funded agencies that work hard to hide information to which the public has a right to under access to information legislation. Vancouver Fire Rescue Services (VFRS) was the recipient of the Code of Silence Award for Outstanding Achievement in Government Secrecy in the municipal category last year for charging exorbitantly high fees for access to a fire investigation report already paid for by taxpayers. The final 2024 Code of Silence Award, for the law enforcement category, will be announced on May 28. SOURCE Canadian Association of Journalists
Calgary Herald
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Calgary Herald
Alberta government failed to follow access to information rules
In a new report, Alberta's information and privacy commissioner has found that the provincial government relied on policies that broke access to information laws and were used to improperly refuse to process some requests for public records. Article content Article content The report was released Friday and comes after a 21 month-long investigation into how the provincial government handles requests made under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIP). Article content Article content In the report, Information and Privacy Commissioner Diane McLeod outlined how 27 public bodies relied on policies that 'do not align with the purposes of the act', with McLeod noting, 'accountability is the cornerstone of the exercise of good governance.' Article content Article content 'There is only one choice that these public bodies have, and that is to administer these provisions in accordance with the act and in such a manner that ensures Albertans are able to effectively exercise these rights.' Article content The investigation centred around how government departments interpreted three sections of the FOIP act related to the wording of requests, the creation of records in response to requests, and the department's duty to assist the public in accessing records. Article content McLeod found multiple breaches of the act around how the government required requests to be structured, including: limiting requests to one topic, restricting the time frame of the search for records, and splitting requests with multiple topics into several new requests at the cost of more fees. Article content Article content She noted the government refused to combine multiple existing records and create one new record, as required for the act. Article content Departments also did not live up to part of the act requiring them to 'make every reasonable effort to assist applicants' in accessing information, according to the report. Article content McLeod recommended overhauling those policies to better align with the act and improve responses to information requests. Article content The office for Service Alberta Minister Dale Nally acknowledged Postmedia's request for comment Friday afternoon.
Edmonton Journal
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Edmonton Journal
Alberta government failed to follow access to information rules
Article content In a new report, Alberta's information and privacy commissioner has found that the provincial government relied on policies that broke access to information laws and were used to improperly refuse to process some requests for public records. The report was released Friday and comes after a 21 month-long investigation into how the provincial government handles requests made under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIP).
CBC
02-05-2025
- Health
- CBC
Changes after review into man's death while waiting at Winnipeg ER include having aides check vitals
Social Sharing Having an around-the-clock health-care aide trained to check the vitals of patients waiting in the emergency room is one of the new measures introduced at Manitoba's largest hospital after a man died while waiting in for care earlier this year. A critical incident review was launched after Chad Christopher Giffin, 49, died following a nearly eight-hour wait for care at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre on Jan. 7. On Thursday, the province released 17 measures it says were put in place immediately after his death and steps taken to respond to recommendations coming out of the critical incident review, in order to prevent future incidents. "One of the fundamental pieces was improving capacity," Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma said at a Thursday news conference, held to announce a team of front-line workers who will work to cut wait times in hospital ERs. Fifteen health care aides have been trained to check patients' vitals at the ER, with one position dedicated to that task at all times, the province said in a statement sent to CBC. Policies for next-of-kin notifications for patients who die while under the care of Manitoba's Public Guardian and Trustee have also been updated to emphasize the importance of notifying their families — something Giffin's sister pushed for. Giffin, who was under the care of the public guardian due to mental illness and addictions, had said he had no next of kin, his sister Ronalee Reynolds previously told CBC News. While she and her mother are happy with changes made to the hospital's ER and internal processes, they're still "disappointed" that the public guardian and trustee didn't have their contact information updated, which may have prevented Giffin's death, she said Thursday. Reynolds said her brother had estranged himself from their family for close to a decade. She only learned after his death that her brother was well known by staff at the HSC's ER. On the night he died, he arrived at the hospital just after midnight and was declared dead in a resuscitation room just before 8 a.m., after staff noticed his condition had worsened. The emergency room was well over capacity on the night leading up to his death, but staffing was close to a baseline level. The Globe and Mail reported on Thursday that emails obtained through the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act show Manitoba deputy health minister Scott Sinclair had asked Shared Health why he and an associate deputy health minister were not notified about Giffin's death sooner. Sinclair also said that media outlets learned of Giffin's death several hours before he and the associate deputy minister learned about it, according to the Globe. "There were concerns about the timing of that, which I think is important to reflect on, which is again why work is actively being done at Shared Health to address that," Asagwara said Thursday. Giffin's death forced the province to look at the shortcomings of its health-care system, they said. "That particular situation, that tragedy, provided opportunities for us as a system to improve and to learn, and that work continues to be done," Asagwara said. "We want to make sure that we respect the family that was affected, and that we take the necessary steps collectively to prevent incidents like that from happening again." Asagwara also cited the province's homelessness strategy and its work to establish a sobering centre, as well as a supervised consumption site, as potential ways to decrease the number of homeless people visiting the ER for warmth in the winter months. Protocols under scrutiny The province says an internal waiting room surge protocol was also developed at HSC, in response to the critical incident report around Giffin's death. Protocols are being reinforced with staff in daily "huddles," and 10 patient records are reviewed every week to ensure protocols are being followed. Community support worker logs are also reviewed to ensure patients are checked on each hour, the province said. Work schedules were reviewed to make sure emergency departments can meet minimum staffing requirements, and staff members who were working when Giffin died were also trained to use automated external defibrillators, according to the province said. Staffing in the waiting room and contingency planning during times of high patient volumes are also being reviewed, along with environmental reviews of the waiting room to improve sightlines from triage. Triage process guidelines were also updated with a focus on the benefits of direct assessments, the province said. The province said it's also working toward reducing overcrowding in ERs, and may expand support services that are typically part of capacity and flow protocols.
