Sunshine Coast ordered to answer ten access requests two at a time

The Sunshine Coast Regional District must answer ten outstanding freedom-of-information requests in the order received, with two moving through the process at a time, under an October 23, 2026 order from British Columbia’s privacy commissioner. Adjudicator David S. Adams found that answering all ten simultaneously would unreasonably interfere with the District’s operations, but that simply discarding them would go too far.

In Order F26-91, 2026 BCIPC 116, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia separately authorized the District to disregard two other requests because they were vexatious. The order also restricts new requests from the same individual while the existing ten are answered, followed by a two-open-request limit. All its terms expire 18 months after the order’s date.

A live dispute did not make every request improper

The District sought permission under section 43 of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act to disregard 12 outstanding requests. The requester was involved in ongoing disputes with the District, and most requests concerned records relevant to those disputes. Seven requests were initially before the commissioner; five more were added after the requester was given an opportunity to address them.

The District argued that the requests consumed excessive resources and formed an increasingly frequent, overlapping effort to challenge its conduct. It wanted to disregard the outstanding requests, refuse further requests for the rest of 2026 and then limit the individual to one open request at a time indefinitely.

The requester said the information mattered to live issues and that persistence was not abuse. Criticizing earlier disclosures or seeking records that might expose unfair treatment did not, in the requester’s view, justify losing access rights.

Adams found none of the requests frivolous. They concerned matters important to the requester, and there was no indication they were made with an expectation that responsive records would not exist. Most also were not vexatious: genuine efforts to obtain records for a live dispute were not automatically improper, and the criticism he reviewed was polite, businesslike and related to the information sought.

Two requests were different. In those, the requester said unredacted records obtained through other proceedings would be compared with the District’s response to test its searches and redactions. Adams found that the purpose had shifted from obtaining information of genuine interest to criticizing the District’s handling of earlier requests. He held those two requests vexatious, noting that disputed redactions could instead be challenged through an OIPC review.

The District did not establish that the remaining ten sought records already disclosed or available elsewhere. It had not identified which records the requester already possessed or connected them to particular outstanding requests. The possibility of overlap was not enough to meet its burden.

Operational interference was a separate question

The decision applied amendments to section 43 that took effect on May 28, 2026 and applied to requests received before, on or after that date. Adams explained that unreasonable interference with a public body’s operations could now support relief on its own. It no longer had to result from requests being excessively broad, repetitious or systematic.

That distinction mattered because the District did not establish that the requester’s overall pattern was an abuse of the right of access. Adams found the requests systematic: they followed an organized plan and built on information obtained earlier. Their frequency had also increased. But most requests had distinct, bounded subject matter, without significant or routine overlap, and the evidence did not show a futile pursuit of records that might not exist. Those features left Adams unpersuaded that the overall pattern had crossed the line into abuse.

The operational burden nevertheless justified some relief. Adams accepted that the individual accounted for 37 per cent of the District’s access requests from the start of 2026 to July 15. Nine of the ten remaining requests were submitted during June. Most contained multiple detailed parts; one request and its supporting documents totalled 24 pages.

The District’s evidence about staffing and capacity was limited. It described a small office and competing duties, including election responsibilities, but did not estimate the time needed to answer the requests. The requester argued that insufficient resources and an election year could not defeat statutory access rights.

Adams acknowledged those evidentiary weaknesses but drew conclusions from the requests themselves. Their complexity, broad demands for records and correspondence, increasing pace and share of the workload supported his finding that answering all ten with their response clocks running together would consume disproportionate resources. That would reduce the resources available to other access applicants. The finding rested on the combined circumstances, not a universal percentage threshold.

A rolling queue, not permission to discard ten requests

Adams concluded that the remedy had to address the anticipated interference without disproportionately restricting access. He rejected the District’s proposed treatment of the ten remaining requests and its indefinite one-request limit, choosing a time-limited process instead.

The District must respond to the ten in chronological order, two at a time, under sections 7 and 8 of the Act. The response clocks for the first two began on October 23. Each time the District responds to an outstanding request, the clock for the next request begins the following day. The queue therefore moves as individual responses are completed, rather than waiting for both requests in a pair to finish.

Until all ten have been answered, the District may disregard new requests made by or on behalf of the individual. After that, it may disregard requests exceeding two open requests at a time and may determine what counts as a single request for that limit. The order defines an open request as one to which the District has not yet provided the response required by sections 7 and 8.

The 18-month expiry applies to all the order’s terms. The outcome preserves the obligation to respond to the ten legitimate requests while controlling their pace; it does not order unconditional disclosure of every requested record or decide the merits of the underlying disputes.