PO-4596

An environmental rights organisation made a request to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The organisation seeks access to records of requests from landowners to modify the official plans in seven regions of Southwestern Ontario and records of directions from the minister’s office to ministry staff regarding these requests.
After notifying third parties and providing them with an opportunity to comment, the ministry decided to release to the organisation some records that it had identified as possibly containing third party information. A third party appealed the ministry’s decision claiming that one of those records, a letter it sent to the former minister, should not be disclosed because of the third party information exemption in section 17(1) of the Act.
In this order the adjudicator finds that the letter and its enclosures do not contain third party information that should be withheld and upholds the ministry’s decision to disclose it to the requester.