Rhino's Ramblings - Another Step In The Big Puzzle

By Robert Thomas Opinion/Commentary

With a new year comes another victory of sorts.

A victory that I am hoping will have some farther reaching ramifications when it comes to regular citizens and accessing the data public bodies hold on them.

This one deals with the Regina Police Service and the investigation they conducted on me, as a journalist, at the behest of the Moose Jaw Police Service (MJPS) Chief Rick Bourassa.

For those of you who are not aware of it I had a RPS officer phone me and demand I reveal my sorce or sources when it came to some of my columns that dealt with the MJPS.

Columns I will openly admit contained information I received from a confidential source or is it sources about allegedly some of the internal goings on - including the budget - of the MJPS.

When I received the call telling me as a “blogger” and I had to tell an officer I personally thought it was a joke. If not it was inferred I could be made to divulge the information.

As I recall it I told the officer or who the individual was on the phone that I actually was an accredited journalist in Moose Jaw.

At that time the now what I discovered to actually be a police officer asked to break off the conversation.

With that said after that I gave the Sargeant who had called me the lecture about journalism not being a crime and how and where I studied and worked abroad.

My thoughts were this at the time and that is if this is a real Police officer I need to say enough to create as big of a file as possible with my name on it so I can raise my concerns later and access really what the police were up to.

Personally I felt it was inappropriate for the police to be investigating a journalist or should I say trying to find out who my source or sources of the information were.

So I thought about it and filed a complaint with the Public Complaints Commission and found out the Regina Police Service investigation was kosher because it was at the request of Moose Jaw's top cop MJPS Chief Rick Bourassa.

That in a brief nutshell led me to submit a LAFOIP (Local Authority Freedom Of Information and Privacy) to the Regina Police Service seeking my personal information as it related to the investigation initiated by MJPS Chief Rick Bourassa.

And the decision on a review by the Office of Information and Privacy Commissioner

I will admit I received a call from the RPS's FOI unit about my information request.

She wanted to know the identity of the officer at the Regina Police Service I told her I had not written it down because I thought it was a joke at the time and I was having lunch at McDonalds.

But it was someone of the rank of sargeant or staff sargeant and had a Ukrainian or Polish surname.

I told the female officer who contacted me there had to be a file because of the letter confirming an investigation I had received from the Public Complaints Commission.

I told her that the investigation was at the behest of Chief Rick Bourassa at the MJPS.

To which she responded “oh then it has to be someone of a higher rank.”

I then told her if she really needed the officer's name to do a thorough search why not phone Chief Rick Bourassa and ask him for the name?

The conversation then turned to the paying of fees to do a search for what the RPS had on me, an individual.

And if it was my own personal information that if it was a reasonable request as set out in the FOI Act.

It’s an argument I had with former City of Moose Jaw City Clerk/Solicitor Myron Gulka-Teichko and won.

The response I received back on the phone from the RPS FOI officer that the legislation allowed it, the form they used for people to submit an FOI asked for far too much information and in my opinion did not comply with the LAFOIP legislation or at least the spirit if it.

The response I received back from the officer was it did comply and it referenced proper sections of the LAFOIP legislation.

My thoughts and response were no it did not come close to the spirit of the legislation and I was unaware of the sections in the Act or the Regulations that allowed it.

In the end - despite the evidence the RPS had started a file on me to

So that led to my filing a request for review.

Paying A Fee Up Front

On the issue of the RPS requesting people on their own LAFOIP form to not just pay money up front for their information plus I felt asked for far too much information than the Legislation allowed that Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner agreed with me.

In fact the final report by Commissioner Ronald J. Kruzeniski, K.C., the Information and Privacy Commissioner concurred with me.

That the spirit of the applicable legislation did not agree with what the entire process had been dealing with the RPS.

Worse yet, and something I mentioned at the time the legislation quoted was wrongly applied and I had never heard of it.

Well in the final report it turns out the RPS's form either did not apply the legislation properly or the sections quoted did not exist at all.

See an excerpt from the report below:

What the review found the RPS's LAFOIP form “referenced regulations that do not appear to exist or the RPS has not made its reference to the files clear…”

And yup its all right there in black and white in the report.

As a result the report recommends the RPS create a different LAFOIP form.

Here is a screenshot of that recommendation below.

Given that it was indicated to me by the RPS that their in-house LAFOIP application form was used by other police forces in the province it sort of begs the question will the MJPS be changing theirs and their procedure(s) around it?

Is leaving it to be examined and questions answered about it and any fees at the initial submission in the hands of a contractor appropriate?

As part of my Request For Review I asked for my $20 back because it’s not the money but the principle.

And what about others who want access and finding 20 extra dollars is a real struggle.

People I believe should, unless for a good reason, have equitable access to what information is held about them personally.

And for free - not some arduous process that sets up major financial or systemic barriers.

Equal and fair access to your own personal information, like the law and justice, are in my opinion intertwined.

So that’s why I asked for my money back its not the $20 but the entire principle.

No File

The review stated the RPS did not have to look further for the file and personal information it may have had about myself.

The reason was I could not remember the investigating officer's name so the search turned up nothing.

They looked for a file with my name on it and turned up 75 people with the same first and last name.

But none of those Robert Thomases had the same date of birth so that ended the search.

Thus no file referenced to me could be located.

No phone call was ever made by the RPS as part of their records search to request Chief Bourassa who was the officer who phoned me.

And the recommendation that the search was sufficient or reasonable is below.

Now could it be there as part of another file with a request to conduct an internal investigation within the MJPS?

I really don’t know. I hate to speculate but who really knows maybe.

But what I do know is an attempt was made by a Regina Police Service officer to in my opinion shake down a journalist at the behest of Chief Rick Bourassa.

For why my best guess is it is about what I published in one of two probes I have conducted into the MJPS.

One was the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners and their budget the other was an LAFOIP I submitted years ago asking for all items lost, stolen or reported missing by the MJPS.

An LAFOIP that I made after hearing things from source(s) about missing evidence at MJPS headquarters a day yup allegations of corruption.

It led to an investigation which led to the termination of longtime Constable Allan Murdock.

The other was the 16 page budget Chief Bourassa provided to the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners.

The only way to find out is to get the RPS file which is held in at least part by the Saskatchewan Public Complaints Commission.

Just so you know the FOIP request there for personal information and the file is underway.

We will keep you posted……

The full report will be up on the Saskatchewan Freedom Of Information and Privacy Commission's web-site after January 17th.