Halifax police 'committed' to public's right to access information, chief says

The Halifax Police chief says his department is responding to recommendations from the province's privacy commissioner around the way Halifax Regional Police handle access to information requests. 

Chief Dan Kinsella says the process is labour intensive and takes time, however he said the department is "committed to the work." 

At a meeting of the Board of Police Commissioners on Wednesday evening, Commissioner Harry Critchley brought forward a motion asking for a staff report on the issue. 

That's after the provincial privacy commissioner made two recommendations in July 2022 that the Halifax police implement policies around the access to information review process, and train staff on those policies. 

Affects all requests 

The July report and recommendations made by the privacy commissioner started with a request for review made by CBC. The CBC was seeking information surrounding police actions in the removal of tents and homeless encampments in Halifax in August 2021. 

The Halifax police denied the CBC's requests for information and the CBC appealed to the privacy commissioner, Tricia Ralph. 

However, the recommendations made by Ralph could apply in any case where a citizen uses access to information laws to request information from the police department.

Ralph wrote in her report that the police decision to release no information "warrants comment" and the department's choice not to submit any arguments during her review was "concerning." 

Critchley asked staff to report back on reasons for or against accepting Ralph's recommendations. If staff recommended acceptance, Critchley asked them to present a plan for how to do so. 

'We take these very, very seriously'

Kinsella answered some questions for the board about the case, and said the organization has recently done training for all staff on the protection of privacy and the protection of information. 

"We take these very, very seriously," he told the board, explaining that while the city's chief administrative officer holds ultimate authority on requests, the responsibility for the requests within HRP is delegated to an information management officer who is an inspector with the department.  

"A large part of this is a capacity issue for our information management officer, who has many areas of responsibility. But we do have to process these things in somewhat of a priority basis," Kinsella said. 

Although the Halifax police chose not to make any submissions to the privacy commissioner's office during her review, Kinsella told the board the department is still working on responding to her report. 

Under provincial law, recommendations from the privacy commissioner should be responded to within 30 days. However, on the recommendations to create policies and train staff, the privacy commissioner gave a timeline of six months and eight months, respectively. 

"We're fully committed to continuing the review, looking at the recommendations, and releasing the information to the extent that we can, after redactions," Kinsella said.

The police department initially chose not to release information about the homeless camp removals for a variety of reasons, including that it believed disclosure would harm law enforcement officers or investigative techniques. 

"While we might have different views on what exactly affects or makes law enforcement vulnerable, we still have the opportunity to state our case to protect our information, to protect our people, to protect identities so people don't have themselves [or] their information put out untoward," Kinsella said. 

"There is an evolving expectation in the community on what should be released, and how it should be released, and the detail that should be released," he added.  

Some of the requests submitted by CBC included use of force reports and the police use of force policy. 

Kinsella said the HRP is working with the Department of Justice on "revamped" use of force reports, and a refreshed use of force policy which has not yet been seen by the board of police commissioners.

• Halifax Regional Police to post some of its policies online

In presenting his motion to the board, Critchley said the role of the board is not to examine the conduct of individual officers, but to look at police policy as a whole. 

"I really feel like this is in keeping with the board's duties to ensure that the police service is operating in keeping with best practices," Critchley said. 

Staff to create report 

In a separate case, CBC also used access to information to request discipline records held by the Halifax police following complaints lodged by the public. 

After police denied that request, CBC chose to appeal the decision to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court. 

Kinsella mentioned that case to the Police Board as well. 

"We currently have one that's a higher pressing priority; this is the one that's currently before the Supreme Court," he said. "We have staff that's redeployed from other duties to go and do the redaction." 

The motion by the Board of Police Commissioners to have staff create a report on the privacy commissioner's recommendations passed. It did not specify a date for when the report will be ready.