Nanaimo faces blizzard of information requests
Nanaimo might end this year with the dubious honour of receiving the most freedom of information requests of all B.C. municipalities.
A staff report going to Nanaimo council said that the city is on track for 624 requests in 2018. It received 168 requests in the first three months of this year.
For context, Vancouver’s total last year was 536 and Surrey’s was 530, the report said. Victoria’s total was 118 in 2017.
Nanaimo’s current record of FOI requests was set in 2016, when 263 were submitted.
The number of requests has been increasing steadily in the past five years, Sheila Gurrie, Nanaimo corporate officer and city clerk, said in her report. In 2013, Nanaimo received 109 FOI requests. Individuals, media, businesses, lawyers, insurance companies and other public bodies are among those seeking information.
Three individuals or organizations have filed 10 or more requests: There have been 36 from one media outlet, 12 from one individual and 11 from a law firm. Not only are there more requests — they are also more technical and detailed, Gurrie said.
Staff spend between 15 and 20 hours per day handling FOI files in the city’s legislative services department, she said. Those hours do not include time spent finding and retrieving records from other city departments.
The report does not address why FOI requests are soaring.
Mike Larsen, president of the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, said Nanaimo is receiving a “surprising amount of FOI requests.”
Without knowing the inside workings of the city’s FOI service, “I would probably attribute [the increase] to the contentious politics of Nanaimo over the last couple of years,” said Larsen, who is co-chairman of the criminology department at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.
Nanaimo has become known for its divisive politics, including a series of personal disputes involving council members and some senior city staff. Frustrations have spilled out at heated public meetings and in-camera sessions.
FOI numbers can also rise when several similar requests come in from one organization, Larsen said.
As well, he said: “I don’t think the city of Nanaimo has anywhere near best practice when it comes to the public posting of FOIs online. Many other cities have indexed and searchable databases.”