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RE: Request for special reconsideration.

Dear Ms:                                                                                                Nov. 4 , 2003

     This reconsideration is in regards to two IPC Orders, M-947 & MO-1519, as the IPC has stated in Order M-947 "6. This office remains seized of this matter for whatever period is necessary to ensure implementation of, compliance with this order" and in Order MO-1519 "5. This office remains seized of this matter for whatever period is necessary to ensure implementation of, compliance with this order", normal reconsideration times limits should not apply.  Also due to shocking new evidence in regards to how wrongly the City of Mississauga is implementing IPC Orders, M-947 & MO-1519 to violate significance key elements of the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act), especially the Privacy sections, to eliminate the grass roots community groups, the Friends of the Cawthra Bush & Greater Mississauga Area (FCB) and The Cawthra Ratepayers' and Residents' Association (CRRA).  Who were trying to save the Cawthra Bush from the City.  The Cawthra Bush is a Provincially Significant Wetlands Complex, an Old-growth urban forest which is also home to Jefferson Salamander, declared by the Canadian government to be a threatened species.  Just to note some of its worthy features.

     This is a very special case in that the IPC must take responsibility for what has occurred as the IPC wrote the Orders that are being so grossly abused, extended far beyond the lawful power that the Act authorizes, to the point of being an attack on the integrity, intent and the spirit of the Act itself.  The IPC has a moral and ethical responsibility to remedy the harm and suffering it is ultimately responsible for in Mississauga and to ensure it does not spread in any way to the rest of Ontario.

     Unless it was the intention of the IPC; to become the weapon of choice for politicians and bureaucrats to destroy community groups that opposed politicians/government plans; to ensure those who would fight for a stronger and a more accountable Democracy, are to be denied the life blood of accurate government records and frustrate them into giving up; to ensure the defenders of the Cawthra Bush a Provincially Significant Wetlands Complex and the Jefferson Salamanders that live in it are left with no realistic means to stop the City's slow destruction of this Old-growth urban forest; and set such dangerous legal precedence as legalizing government censorship, cover-up by way of guilty of association to the point of a life time ban on the community that not even a political party, the Green Party, can access City records; and that even denies the public non-FOI related services such as talking to Planning staff.  Then the IPC needs to withdraw and reconsideration Orders, M-947 & MO-1519.

     I request that Orders, M-947 & MO-1519 be withdrawn as the wording in them is being used to far exceed the powers that legislation has granted the Act.  This is particularly true in Order  MO-1519 and shown in the documents supplied in my Nov. 3/03, request for a Compliance investigation and in the City of Mississauga's FOI Co-ordinators, Joan LeFeuvre, own words.   Further examples or reasons on the next page.

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1).     "Memorandum dated March 4, 2002, from Joan LeFeuvre to staff of all
            City departments with copies sent to the Senior Management team
            and members of Council."  She effectively broadcasted my "personal
            information", City wide.  The reason she claims for her actions is
            the IPC made her to it - she was carrying out IPC Order MO-1519.

2).     Blacklisting an identified FOI requester by noting the IPC Orders
          against him, while claiming IPC Order MO-1519 is to deny all
          communication with City staff, which effectively means City services
          such as access to Planing staff. To "Paulina Mikicich of the Planning
          and Building Department", saying "the City is not required to respond
          to any communication from him unless it is in response to a properly
          filed access request".  The Act can not be used to impose a ban on
          non-FOI requests/services.

3).     The IPC Order MO-1519 was in the same way to block access to an
           elected official, the Ward1 Councillor, Carmen Corbasson. Again, to
           try and understand a proposed Official Plan Amendment and Rezoning
           Application on Northmount Ave.

4).     To follow Joan LeFeuvre's directions "the City is not required to
           respond to any communication from him unless it is in response to a
           properly filed access request", regarding my attempt to speak to
           Planning staff, would result in the same conduct that is noted in M-947
           as being frivolous & vexatious.   Making pointless FOI requests and
           Appeals to the IPC, that the IPC will respond by declaring the FOI
           requests as frivolous & vexatious, contrary to the Act or the law.
           I would say Joan LeFeuvre is trying to get me to commit an unlawful
           act.  Again she is saying the IPC made her do it.

5).     That the disclosure of my (and likely others), "personal information"
           created a basis or prejudice against a FOI requester (me), seeking
           City services.  That confrontation if not hostilities are a very real
           danger to FCB & CRRA supporters due to Joan LeFeuvre's reckless
            use of IPC Orders and "personal information".

6).       That a political agenda is behind the City's miss-use of M-947 &
            MO-1519.

7).       That the City's overly strict use of Order M-947 has been contrary to
             the public's interest, as it has denied a community access to City
             records, even the Green Party of Ontario, was shut out and deny
             taxpayers the chance to paly a meaningful role in local government
             decision making.

8).       That the IPC allowed itself to be used by the City as a forum for a
            government institution to make complaints against members of the
            public in order to deny them service (including non-FOI requests), by
            way of secret trials.  The City complained about how I used records
             gained from the City "as a means to facilitate libellous and
             irresponsible allegations regarding the City, its elected officials and
             staff"(M-947), and in Order M-947 "The City has provided  me (IPC),
             with a copy of a report from one of its staff members", which I gather,
             contained the City's false statements about my "attitude".  I was
             never presented a copy of this report or other specific details of City
             claims, so I could not respond to them.  The IPC, by devoting so much
             of Orders M-947 & MO-1519 to entertaining the City's attack on my
             character and "attitude", without providing the necessary specifics
             to respond to.  Means the IPC has indeed lay claim to being a forum
             for government institutions to make complaints against members of
             the public, to be the adjudicator for judging the behaviour and
              "attitude" of the public for the general benefit of government
             institutions and their politicians.  Even if that power is not found in the
            Act.

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9).         That in order to help the spread of basis or prejudice against a FOI
               requester seeking City services, issues like ensuring the
               confidentially of the FOI requester and the proper storage of their
               records were not properly noted to City staff.

10).        That a form of "contentious issues management" is taking place in
                Mississauga and aided by the IPC.

11).        The IPC should be shamed to discover the City has cut off a
                community trying to work within the system.  An action that is
                totally the opposite for which the IPC was created!
 

     The spectre of political interference and gain is clearly cast over events.  Also, as the IPC was warned of this matter and allowed it to continue without interference.  Oct. 7/02, I wrote Ann Cavoukian, the IPC Commissioner and requested her personal intervention "regarding how the City of Mississauga is interrupting order MO-1519."  Oct. 11/02,  Robert Binstock, the IPC's Registrar, writes back that he will respond to my letter and as no FOI request had been made "there is nothing we can do".  This is what the IPC considers to be moral and ethical?

     The IPC is on the record as stating in Order PO-1997, "It would appear to me that the Ministry has taken an overly restrictive interpretation of the scope of the appellant's request. He was clearly interested in obtaining details regarding the funding of the golf tournament in question, and made efforts to work with the Ministry to define his request as specifically as possible in order to reduce time and costs. Not knowing the specific content of the records, the appellant understandably was handicapped in his ability to identify the requested information precisely and, in my view, it appears that the Ministry may have taken advantage of this situation in defining the scope of the request narrowly. Had there been any doubt as to whether the
"non-responsive" information was of interest to the appellant, a simple phone call to him would have provided the necessary clarity."  From that quote the IPC recognizes an institution can block legitimate efforts by the public to get service from an institution by wrongly using the Act.  That an institution can withhold "a simple phone call", as a part of its efforts to deny a necessary government service for a member of the public to be informed regarding government activities.  The case in Mississauga is far worse, as the IPC refused to make a "a simple phone call" to investigate if the City of Mississauga was grossly miss-using the Act for purposes it was created to end.  Government unreasonably shutting the public out of local government decision making.

     I request that IPC Orders, M-947 & MO-1519 be withdrawn as the wording in them is being used to far exceed the powers that legislation has granted the Act and they be fully reconsideration in light of the effect they have had on the community and Democracy in general.  That the wording is easily miss-quoted and individual sentences unclearly, especially true in Order MO-1519.

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 I am willing to discuss my letter with you, in case the wording seems a little
 ambiguous or you want a request explained.  My phone number is (***) ***-**** & e-mail  ***************.  Web-site - home.eol.ca/~donbar  There is an answering machine you can leave private messages on.  As long as you are talking the machine will record.  If someone answers the phone
before the machine can come on, please ask them to hang up and let the next call ring through.  I would appreciate your co-operation in using the answering machine, rather than leaving messages with anyone else answering the telephone.

Please find enclosed;

1).     A copy of my letter to Ann Cavoukian, IPC Commissioner, dated Oct. 7, 2002.

2).     A copy of Robert Binstock's (IPC Registrar), letter dated Oct. 11 2002.

Sincerely, Mr. Donald Barber.

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