Saskatchewan’s information and privacy commissioner has recommended that the Water Security Agency replace a $55,545 access-to-information fee estimate with one for $5,073, finding that its approach did not adequately account for duplicate records or justify the work it proposed to charge for. Grace Hession David’s Review Report 060-2026, dated September 4, 2026, connects the excessive estimate to weaknesses in email management and search planning.
The report recommends a $2,536.50 deposit, representing half the revised estimate, after which the agency would be required to continue processing the request. It is a recommendation about estimated processing fees, not an order granting access to particular records, a refund award or a finding that the applicant paid either amount. The commissioner did not decide the underlying drainage dispute that prompted the request.
Narrowing the request barely changed the price
The applicant sought correspondence and other records concerning a Request for Assistance file over roughly eight months. The January 2026 request included emails, messages, documents and other material held by multiple agency personnel. The agency initially estimated a fee of $55,965 and required a $27,982.50 deposit.
The applicant then removed categories including historical aerial and satellite photography, hydrological analysis, a GPS survey and a Provincial Auditor report. That reduced the estimate by $390. Removing voice recordings produced another $30 reduction, leaving the February 18 estimate of $55,545 and a $27,772.50 deposit. That final estimate was the subject of the review.
Most of the proposed charge was for preparing records for disclosure, not finding them. The agency estimated 73,246 pages, 22.5 hours of searching at a cost of $675, and 1,831 hours of preparation costing $54,930. After deducting $60 for the first two hours, the total was $55,545. It proposed no reproduction charge because it would deliver electronic records through a secure transfer service at no cost to the applicant.
Reasonable cost recovery, not a barrier to access
Section 9(2) of The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act requires a reasonable estimate where fees exceed the prescribed $100 threshold and prevents the applicant from being charged more than the estimate. Section 6(3) of the regulations sets a fee of $15 for each half-hour, or portion of a half-hour, spent searching or preparing records beyond the first two hours.
The commissioner recognized that applicants should bear reasonable costs and cooperate in defining their requests. But fees must remain proportionate to the work reasonably required. Administrative inefficiencies and poor records management should not be passed on to applicants as unreasonable barriers to access.
The agency argued that the applicant wanted records from numerous individuals and that overlapping email threads made duplication likely. Employees were told to locate potentially relevant material, leaving the access office to assess responsiveness. The agency maintained that, before the fee was accepted, it could not properly undertake further work to reduce the volume. The applicant countered that the immense page and preparation estimates were implausible for a single file covering a limited period.
Email practices inflated the search
The agency’s own guidelines required employees to save relevant correspondence to the appropriate file. It acknowledged that staff did not always follow that policy, meaning searches of individual inboxes could uncover material missing from the official file. The commissioner found that this practice increased time and costs and undermined efficient access processing.
Maintaining secondary inbox copies also created a duplication problem. The commissioner recommended ending the practice of retaining those secondary copies and ensuring compliance with the filing guidelines. That discussion concerned proper management of records already captured in the official file; it was not a finding that responsive records had been destroyed or permission to discard the official record.
The agency had already sent ten employees to conduct searches before issuing its first estimate and before the applicant narrowed the request. The commissioner criticized that sequence: a search strategy and reasonable estimate should allow an applicant to make an informed decision before the full search proceeds. Independent searches also produced inconsistent time estimates, while postponing responsiveness screening risked sending irrelevant material to the access office.
Using her office’s general search-time benchmarks, the commissioner calculated an estimated search component of $51, rather than $675. These were the commissioner’s estimates for this request, not a finding that the agency had actually completed an adequate search within that time or a universal rule that every electronic search requires the same effort.
Reworking the page-count assumptions
The agency calculated its page estimate using Ministry of Justice guidance that converts electronic file sizes into estimated page counts. It then assumed that 75 per cent of pages would need severing and allowed two minutes per page for that work. The commissioner found no adequate explanation for the 75 per cent assumption and noted that the calculation did not account for duplication or non-responsive material.
Because this was a fee-estimate review, the commissioner did not inspect an underlying set of requested records. Her calculation instead adjusted the agency’s figures to account for expected duplication between emails saved in the official file and copies found in individual accounts. Applying the agency’s conversion method to the remaining email volume produced an estimate of 159.08 email pages. Adding the agency’s estimate of 6,617 pages in other formats produced 6,776.08 estimated pages in total.
Despite criticizing the explanation for the agency’s severing assumption, the commissioner retained its 75 per cent figure in the revised calculation. Applying two minutes per estimated page requiring severing produced a preparation estimate of $5,082. Adding the $51 search component and deducting the $60 free allowance resulted in the recommended $5,073 total—a $50,472 difference from the estimate under review.
Those figures are estimates, not an audited count of unique responsive records. The report’s central point is that duplicated email holdings and unsupported assumptions cannot simply be multiplied into a large access bill. It also recognizes that identifying the likely volume and nature of responsive material is part of preparing a meaningful estimate, rather than a task that can always be deferred until the applicant has agreed to pay.
Processing remains conditional on the deposit
The commissioner concluded that the agency had not demonstrated that its $55,545 estimate was reasonable and recommended issuing the revised estimate with the $2,536.50 deposit. If that deposit is paid, the recommendation provides that the agency must continue processing the request. The report does not decide any eventual exemption claims or establish that records have since been released.
The institutional significance extends beyond the price difference: orderly filing, coordinated searches and evidence-based preparation estimates can determine whether an access right is practically usable. The report records that the agency was reviewing its email guidelines, but does not establish that those changes were implemented or that it accepted the revised fee recommendation.
