Public Commons

Part of Information and Transparency Playgrounds Safety

Ulli S. Watkiss
City Clerk
City Hall, 13th Floor West
100 Queen Street West
Toronto, Ontario M5H 2N2

Dear Ms. Watkiss:

Subject:City of Toronto Access Request Number A GEN-2008-00262

Thanks for your letter dated April 23, 2008 and the excerpts from the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

While I am not a lawyer, it is my understanding that all court pleadings are public documents. If this is correct, presumably these documents are deemed to be public under the legislation pertaining to the courts in which the actions were started (as per section 14 (d) of the excerpt you provided to me). In this case, I believe we would be entitled to access to the Statements of Claim and the City’s Defences without any severing.

With respect to the settlement agreements or other agreements which terminated the court actions in question, I would request access to the unsevered agreements for the purposes of research as set out in section 14 (e). As I have stated in my earlier access requests, CELOS has no interest in the identity of the people who have brought claims against the City. Rather, the CELOS research is concerned with the nature of the injuries sustained in public parks and skating rinks and the total cost of injury claims paid out by the city as a result of these injuries. We would like to request access to the agreements in accordance with the conditions set out in section 10 of the R.R.O. 1990, Regulation 823, and as per the attached signed agreement.

Thank you for your assistance with our research.

If you have any questions or need further information, please e-mail me at Belinda@magma.ca or call me at 416-913-8037.

Sincerely,

Belinda Cole

FORM 1
AGREEMENT
Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act

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10. (1) The following are the terms and conditions relating to security and confidentiality that a person is required to agree to before a head may disclose personal information to that person for a research purpose: ## The person shall use the information only for a research purpose set out in the agreement or for which the person has written authorization from the institution. ## The person shall name in the agreement any other persons who will be given access to personal information in a form in which the individual to whom it relates can be identified. ## Before disclosing personal information to other persons under paragraph 2, the person shall enter into an agreement with those persons to ensure that they will not disclose it to any other person. ## The person shall keep the information in a physically secure location to which access is given only to the person and to the persons given access under paragraph 2. ## The person shall destroy all individual identifiers in the information by the date specified in the agreement. ## The person shall not contact any individual to whom personal information relates directly or indirectly without the prior written authority of the institution. ## The person shall ensure that no personal information will be used or disclosed in a form in which the individual to whom it relates can be identified without the written authority of the institution. ## The person shall notify the institution in writing immediately if the person becomes aware that any of the conditions set out in this section have been breached. R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 823, s. 10 (1). (2) An agreement relating to the security and confidentiality of personal information to be disclosed for a research purpose shall be in Form 1. R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 823, s. 10 (2).