Here’s another one for the bulging file on government agencies which have violated the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA).

Yesterday, I received a letter from the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) finding TransLink violated the Act on one of my FOI requests.

“TransLink did not respond to you ‘without delay’ and provided a summary of the information you requested to a member of the media before responding to your request. Therefore I find that TransLink did not comply with section 6 of FIPPA,” ruled OIPC investigator Trevor Presley. “TransLink did not provide a reasonable explanation as to why they were ultimately four months late in responding to your request. Therefore I find that TransLink did not comply with section 7 of FIPPA.”

The reason they took so long is simple: in the wake of bungling the Ian Jarvis demotion, their interim CEO Doug Allen took three months to review the severance information, ensuring voting was finished on the TransLink tax:

• As set out in the investigator’s decision, on Nov. 21, 2014 – before the TransLink sales tax was hatched and before the plebiscite date was set – I requested information from TransLink on severance packages paid out since Jan. 1, 2011.
• TransLink took a time extension for consultation, pushing the due date for the information to Feb. 20, 2015.
• On Feb. 17 (a few days after they kicked Ian Jarvis aside and brought in Doug Allen – and right about the time the No TransLink Tax campaign took the lead in the polls), TransLink tried to push the due date even later, but the OIPC office rejected their motion. Their FOI manager claimed new CEO Allen “had just come on-board and required time to review and analyze the responsive information,” noted Presley. This took three months, they claimed.
• Three months later would have been the final week of voting – just to be safe, TransLink waited another month to release it.
• They appealed on March 4 for another legal extension, and were again rejected. So they just ignored the OIPC and hung on to the results anyway.
• On June 29 at 2:09 pm, TransLink sent a summary of my request’s response to a newspaper reporter. “TransLink also acknowledged that they disclosed records related to your request to a member of the media just prior to responding to your request,” wrote Presley.
• Two hours and twelve minutes later – more then seven months after I asked for it, they finally responded to my request. Conveniently for them, voting had been finished for a month.

I filed a complaint to the OIPC, and the ruling came down last week. The full letter from the OIPC can be found HERE.

Ultimately, it didn't matter. Lower Mainland residents voted 62% to kill the TransLink sales tax. A major issue was a lack of trust in TransLink's leadership. Given TransLink's lack of transparency and accountability in this and many other cases, it was a wise decision by voters.