What is this Service?

The Office of the Clerk is responsible for a variety of corporate, administrative and legislative functions and coordination of all requests received under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (MFIPPA).

Municipalities are subject to MFIPPA / FIPPA and municipalities that have Health Information Custodians or act as agents on behalf of Health Information Custodians are subject to the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA).

Specific services include:

• Legislative support to Councils, Standing Committees, Sub-committee and Volunteer committees
• Processing of official correspondence to and from Councils
• Coordination of all requests received under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act
• Registration of Births and Deaths
• Issuance of marriage licenses and various other business licenses and permits
• Coordination of municipal elections (every four years)
• Serves as a general information office with respect to a broad range of inquires from the public

Influencing Factors:

• Citizen Engagement:  State of interaction with citizens and the amount of citizen trust/distrust of the organizaton.
• Complexity:  Types and number of requests including files, email correspondence, text messages, etc.; amount of time required, issue, number of departments impacted, number of pages to be reviewed, number of 3rd parties involved, litigation involvement, requests for politicians records and files.
• Contentious Issues:  Whether there are prevailing major issues in the municipality, e.g. major construction projects, road widening, bids for international events, etc.
• Nature of Requests:  Media / special interest groups / individuals / businesses.
• Organization:  Size, administrative structure (centralized vs. decentralized) and culture of the organization; and amount of training provided to Municipal staff who handle requests.
• Political Climate:  Related to availability of information from elected officials such as meeting calendars.
• Practices & Policies:  Responsiveness of the organization to requests; number of routine disclosure policies.
• Privacy Protection:  Growing trend to spend time assessing privacy concerns, e.g. software agreements, privacy breaches, increased focus on privacy brought forward by PIC (Privacy and Information Commissioner)