Driving teachers’ names won’t be released
Privacy watchdog must first give green light, Murray says
Transportation Minister Glen Murray says his ministry would release the names of disgraced driving instructors who have committed illegal acts, such as selling alcohol and contraband cigarettes to students, but only if the province’s privacy commissioner gives the green light.
Murray said the names of instructors who have had their teaching licences revoked are “viewed with great concern and confidentiality” and should not be made public unless his ministry is instructed to do so by Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner.
“It will not be a political process,” he told reporters Thursday. “It will go through the privacy commissioner.”
An ongoing Star investigation of driving schools in the GTA revealed this week that Ontario driving instructors have been stripped of their teaching licences for improper, and in some cases illegal, activity, including selling alcohol and contraband cigarettes to students, taking payment without providing lessons and visiting a strip club during an in-vehicle lesson.
The Ministry of Transportation insists the names of these instructors — close to 300 of them — should be kept secret because the information is of a “personal nature” and that releasing the names would be an “unjustified invasion of personal privacy.”
The Star has appealed the ministry’s stance to Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner on the grounds that the release of the names concerns public safety. The appeal process requires each party to submit arguments in favour of its position.
The ministry has refused to say if it reported illegal activity to police and argues that the health and safety aspect of the Star’s request “should be accorded little weight.”
MPP Jeff Yurek, transportation critic for the Progressive Conservatives, said the minister was “hiding behind privacy laws.”
“We don’t know why the minister would place privacy over the safety of our children learning how to drive a car,” Yurek said.
Master driving instructor Bill Pollock argues that if the ministry had enough evidence of misconduct to revoke a licence, there is no reason to keep the names secret.
“Revoking somebody’s livelihood is a very serious issue,” Pollock said. “If they have good grounds to do it, why would the ministry be afraid to make the names public? What are they afraid of?”