I don’t want to say we feel vindicated -- but we do.
Last week the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) ruled that, yes, in fact, the city does have to provide the Richmond News with documents that may shed light on why the opening of the Minoru Centre for Active Living (MCAL) was delayed by three years. (See page 4)
The centre was originally expected to open in 2017 but didn’t fully open until September 2020.
This information tussle between the city and ourselves began back in 2017 when the first anticipated opening date came and went, with still no new facility.
We began asking why.
At the time, we were told it had to do with bad weather and a labour shortage. Indeed, there had been bad weather and a labour shortage but that still didn’t explain a full year’s delay. Besides, we could point to other similar projects that were getting finished on time, or at least close to.
In February 2019, our reporter Maria Rantanen filed a Freedom of Information (FOI) request with the city, asking to see documents related to delays in the facility’s construction.
The city didn’t respond for another five months but in the meantime (March 2019) announced that the facility would open —just in time for March Break.
Two weeks before the grand and long-awaited for opening, however, the city announced that while the seniors centre would open, the pools would not because they had found cracks in them.
In July 2019, five months after we had submitted our FOI, the city responded saying that it would not provide any documents other than four, three of which of which were press releases that they’d already sent out.
We immediately appealed to the OIPC to review the case, but that process didn’t start until almost two years later in 2021 — talk about an exercise in patience.
During that time, in February 2020, the construction company hired to build the facility, Stuart Olson, launched a lawsuit against the city regarding the project.
In their pitch to the OIPC, the city said it couldn’t disclose the documents because making them public could give Stuart Olson, now their adversary in court, a legal advantage. That, even though Stuart Olson didn’t launch its lawsuit until well after we had made our FOI request.
Regardless, last week the OIPC adjudicator announced many of the documents had to be disclosed to the Richmond News because, in part, most of the information in them had been shared with a third party, so is already accessible to Stuart Olson.
Making the documents public would not damage the city’s case in court, he stated.
Now, I can’t say what’s going on in the minds of the city lawyers, but I would guess there is nothing the adjudicator said in his recent report that they didn’t already know.
In other words, they knew Stuart Olson would have access to the information and that giving it to us would not impact their case.
However, as we all know there is the court of law and then there’s the court of public opinion. And it’s the latter that they’re trying to control.
It is not our intent to give one side or another an unfair legal advantage. It is our intent, however, to ensure the citizens of Richmond are privy to how a multimillion dollar project, being built in their name with their money, is being handled.
These documents may very well prove to be tedious reading. We have no reason to suspect there’s a smoking gun nestled in there. But that doesn’t mean this little victory isn’t important.
In fact, it’s really important if we believe in public accountability.
