NS Info officer’s on the job
Info officer's on the job Dulcie McCallum became the province's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy review officer in February 2007, the same month The Chronicle Herald first asked the Workers' Compensation Board to name the 25 companies in Nova Scotia reporting the highest numbers of injuries in each of the previous three years. Ms. McCallum is a lawyer and former ombudsman for British Columbia. She once worked as part of the Canadian delegation to the United Nations to draft the new UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. RELATED She is only the second person to hold the position of review officer, although there was an acting review officer for a time before Ms. McCallum was hired. Appointed by cabinet, her role is to be independent, assessing requests for information that have been turned down by provincial and municipal departments and other public bodies, including hospitals, universities and school boards. Since she has been on the job, the office has received 97 review requests, including this one from The Chronicle Herald. Sixty-three files, some of which may have been started before she took the position, have been closed. According to statistics provided by her office, she so far has filed 12 reports. In all but two cases, she disagreed either completely or in part with the government or other public body's decisions. Her recommendations, however, are not binding. In two cases, including her review of The Chronicle Herald's request to the Workers' Compensation Board, her recommendations were completely rejected by the public body. In the other cases, her recommendations were accepted completely or in part. Darce Fardy, who was the province's first review officer until he retired in 2006, said officers in some provinces have the power to make orders rather than recommendations, but even those orders are subject to court challenges. Now the president of the Right to Know Coalition of Nova Scotia, Mr. Fardy said review officers' reports are generally accepted. If the review officer's recommendations are not followed, the applicant can challenge the decision at Nova Scotia Supreme Court. During his 11 years in the office, the former journalist estimated his recommendations were followed about 70 per cent of the time. When they weren't, and the applicant challenged the public body in court, they were usually successful. Of the almost 30 times his recommendations resulted in court rulings, in all but one case, the court came down on the side of providing all or most of the information requested, he said.
By KELLY SHIERS Staff Reporter
Mon. Jun 2 - 7:13 PM
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