This continues the transcripts of proceedings at the regular general meeting of the Gabriola Fire Protection Improvement District was held on July 2nd, 2025.
1. Privacy Commissioner - report by the chair
(Item from VIII. Business Arising) Two suggested motions were included in the Agenda as a starting point for discussions:
Suggested Motion: THAT the board establish a select committee to examine the handling of FOI requests and generate recommendations for the purpose of reducing future costs. That the committee be empowered to examine the practice of the GFPID, the policies of other improvement districts, and to seek consultation with subject matter experts. The committee will report to the board within 60 days.
Suggested Motion: THAT the Gabriola Fire Protection Improvement District initiate a formal review of its policies, procedures, and record-keeping practices with the goal of conforming to FIPPA and the Open Governance Standards recommended by the Office of the Ombudsperson for British Columbia, and that the Corporate Officer be specifically empowered to engage with the Public Authority Consultation and Training Team (PACT) of the BC Office of the Ombudsperson for the purpose of working towards administrative fairness in the work of the GFPID.
NOTES: The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act sets out the access and privacy rights of individuals as they relate to the public sector. The Information and Privacy Commissioner enforces the legislation.
CHAIR WAYNE MERCIER: First item on the agenda from that section is, as seems to be tradition, is Privacy Commissioner or OIPC [ED: Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC] report. So if you have the agenda, I'm doing this in reverse order. One FOI request was received on May 20, 2025, that was completed by Stikeman Elliot. There are two ongoing Freedom of Information matters, and this brings us to why further conversation about this will be held in camera, it’s because it involves a conflict of interest with me. I made a request. I was not happy with the quality of the response I received, so I made a complaint. That complaint is now under investigation, so I'm in the intolerable position of being the person who made the complaint and the person who decides on the response to the complaint. That's a clear conflict of interest, so I have to recuse myself from all interactions with the OIPC with respect to those two matters. In order to do that, someone else from the board will have to take on the responsibility of head of the public body with respect to those two matters, and handle all correspondence and everything with the Information and Privacy Commissioner. Properly deliberating who that's going to be and how that's going to be done, and how they're going to handle communications with me about it when I'm also communicating with the commissioner on the other side, that discussion will necessarily touch on topics which are required to be kept confidential, and so it will take place in camera.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: A secret meeting.
CHAIR: No, not a secret meeting. I'm telling you. [laughter] I'm even telling you what the conversation is going to be about, why it's being moved in camera, and what the end goal is. If there's a way to keep it less secret, please write us a letter and tell me.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Don't put it on Facebook.
CHAIR: I don't have any need now, it goes on the website.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: That was just a joke.
CHAIR: Humor. Totally welcome. So I believe that to be the Privacy Commissioner report part of the OIPC agenda item. There are a couple of suggested items on the agenda. This is the first time we've come to these suggested items. They're just there. The business is before the board. If there is any aspect of the OIPC and Freedom of Information Act response process that the board feels it is necessary or desirable to address now is your chance. You can make a motion to adopt something, to stop doing something, you can not say anything, and then maybe we move on. It's my prerogative, as chair of a small group, that I can, just as any other trustee, I can advance a motion, whether it's this motion, or some one of these motions or some other motion. If that's not seconded, it doesn't go anywhere. So if anyone has any contribution to the information that I've presented, or the suggested motions or Freedom of Information Act matters as they relate to the Gabriola Fire Protection Improvement District, the floor is now open.
TRUSTEE ERIK JOHNSON: We have PrivacyWorks. I think this company that has handled so far in the last little while, the information request, are we going forward with that outfit, another outfit, or are we going to handle it in house? and then in house, who is that going to be?
CHAIR: This is part of what we need to discuss generally. My understanding is that certainly, PrivacyWorks has been involved in responding to past requests. There's a note in this report that at least one request has been responded to by legal counsel, and certainly early in the process, it was handled at least in part in house. So part of the process of figuring out how we're going to deal with my conflict of interest will involve looking at the policies that currently exist. There's a policy around how Freedom of Information Act requests are handled, and that policy directs the handling of those requests to the Chair, but the prior Chair is no longer sitting at the table, and so part of what we have to discuss is how we're going to handle that, and then it becomes mushy with confidentiality.
TRUSTEE JOHN MOELLER: So basically, the former chair was the primary contact for PrivacyWorks, and they've got a couple of FOIs still in the works. So just for business continuity, I was going to suggest that we appoint somebody else to become that point person.
CHAIR: By established policy, the head of the public body is responsible—I want to make sure I get this right—the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act specifies that the head of the public body must must respond to FOI requests. [ED: See Act Part 2, Division 1, Section 6] Current Gabriola Fire Protection Improvement District policy identifies the Chair of the Board of Trustees as the head of the public body, who therefore has responsibility for responding to those requests. We have this conflict of interest problem now, because that responder is Chair, with me, has … this thing. So if we want to address the policy in general around who responds to FOI requests, that we can do as part of a later thing with the policy review and whatever, but the default policy now is the Chair.
FACT-CHECK: who responds to FOI requests (as per Freedom of Information And Privacy Act)
TRUSTEE MOELLER: Okay, so we should just make some changes, because … emails they're going to send are probably going to bounce back because they're going to—
CHAIR: That's one of the things that we’ve got to go in camera to discuss properly. But yes, you're correct.
TRUSTEE DIANA MOHER: I would suggest that the suggested motion establishing the Select Committee be tabled at this time until we can meet in camera and decide who is going to be the head.
CHAIR: We can't table it because it doesn't exist yet. We can't table a motion that hasn't been moved.
TRUSTEE MOHER: Well, then I suggest we just set it aside, because until—
CHAIR: There's nothing, it hasn't been—it's not under consideration. There's nothing to set aside. It just exists on paper.
TRUSTEE MOHER: You put a suggested motion for us to consider. I'm asking us not to consider it at this point.
CHAIR: Then there’s no—then don’t move it.
TRUSTEE MOHER: I'm not, but either somebody may, and I'm making the recommendation—
CHAIR: Well, if someone moves it, then you can either not second or argue against it.
TRUSTEE MOHER: My considered opinion is that we do not put it to a motion, because we need to have somebody established to take over the position.
CHAIR: Well, there's, no, there's already a person established to handle it, and that person is the Chair of the board, and that person is me. If we want to change that—
TRUSTEE MOHER: That's what I'm saying. Until that can be fixed, because you can’t—
CHAIR: Well, I can do it. I just can't do it in respect to two in two pieces, two investigations. But I didn't make the policy that makes the Chair the head of the public body, who is therefore responsible for responding to the Commissioner, and I didn't make me chair. You all did that. So right now, my responsibility is to respond to those things, except for two particular cases. If no one is interested in moving either, like, any matter just [unintelligible].
Privacy management program
TRUSTEE DAVID CHORNEYKO: So I have a question, do we have a privacy management program? And the reason I ask this is within the FIPPA legislation 36.2 states that “The head of a public body must develop a privacy management program for the public body and must do so in accordance with the directions of the minister responsible for this Act.” So do we have that?
CHAIR: I'm going to answer this carefully. To the best of my knowledge, such a policy has not been included in any of the publicly released policy documents that are available. Whether the prior Chair was working to establish such a policy, either by himself or in consultation with outside consultants, I can't answer at this time, because we need to establish things about access and responsibility, and we need to properly discuss those in camera so that I can give you a better answer then. And now, we have stuff up.
TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: So I would like to move that … we create a privacy management program for this organization, so we’re in accordance with FIPPA.
[Discussion of exact phrasing of motion]
CHAIR: So someone just handed me the policy for Freedom of Information Act requests to the Gabriola Fire Protection Improvement District. There's a process here. And so "For the purposes of this policy, the head of the public body will be the chair of the Gabriola Fire Protection Improvement District Board of Trustees. The head of a public body may delegate to any person, any duty, power or function of the head of the public body under this Act, except the power to delegate under this section," [ED: this quotes directly from GFPID "Policy for Freedom of Information Act Requests to the GFPID"] which means that we can go through this process that we have to go through in camera, where we delegate someone else to manage it, because I can't. And that person can do anything that the head of body can do except delegate that task further. So that's the process that we have to go through in camera, is to establish that formally with respect to the two investigations that involved me. With respect to everything else the policy is the policy.
So I have a motion here from trustee Chorneyko, with respect to Freedom of Information Act matters. I move that. So I'm just going to read it out. This is me putting it for consideration. Actually, you should probably read this out, just because I'm the Chair and I don't want to confuse anything even further than it is.
TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: I move that the GFPID creates a Privacy Management Program in accordance with FIPPA 36.2.
CHAIR: Is there a second for that motion?
Okay, before we—I see confusion. So trustee Chorneyko has moved the motion that we conduct, that we, I'm going to paraphrase, build like a record—It's basically a records management plan, privacy management plan, … which sets out how, formally, we're going to organize our stuff to comply with the Freedom of Information Protection and Privacy Act, as described in the specific section of your site. So Trustee Chorneyko has proposed that motion for us to debate. If anyone at the table thinks that it's worth us debating that motion, then you can second the motion, and then we're able to consider it; if no one seconds it then this pause we took, and the little break where trustee Chorneyko did some writing, was just a little refreshing break for everyone and not business. So is there a second for that motion? [Trustee Bussler seconds.] So the motion has been seconded by Trustee Bussler, so once I read it out, it's up for consideration by the board. The motion before us is “that the Gabriola Fire Protection Improvement District creates a privacy management program in accordance with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, Section 36.2,” moved by Trustee Chorneyko, seconded by Trustee Bussler. So the floor is now open for discussion of the motion or proposed amendments. An amendment can take the form of “I move that we add these words and everyone gets ice cream,” and then we will discuss that. Or it can be debate about the merits of the motion. So the floor is now open to the board.
TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: I'd like to speak to it.
CHAIR: You moved the motion, so I'm gonna let someone else respond to it, then bring it back to you, but I'll see that you're on the list. Trustee Johnson, you raised your hand.
TRUSTEE JOHNSON: It's not that I object to that, I just don't have enough information yet, at this time. You know, it kind of got sprung on us. I haven't, I don't know that particular code by heart. So I'd like a little more time to just look at it. And I guess if I may make a suggestion, that we have a select committee, or whatever you want to do, with you at the head of it, and we discuss that matter. […] I'm concerned that we need to know exactly what we're signing up for. I have to tell you that’s not a “no” on my part, it’s a “maybe” given more information.
TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: The reason I brought this forward is recently, we talked a little bit about privacy files and stuff like that. And so it got me reading FIPPA, and it became very clear to me that we need this. It's required by law that we have a privacy management program, and it is a way that we can structure how we do records, and not only physical records, but electronic records, and how we manage privacy with that. I was a strata president for eight years, and so FIPPA, we weren't exposed to FIPPA, but we were exposed to PIPA, which is a privacy thing also and personal protection, very similar. It's for corporations and that, versus governments. Anyways, it's a similar thing, and legislation was introduced where we had to write a privacy policy, and it was a very good exercise to go through, because as we wrote the policy, it made us explore what personal information we were collecting and how we were using it. And so that process made us figure a lot of things out. And so I don't think this organization has it. It's required by law, and we should do this, especially with all of the the privacy stuff and the Freedom Of Information requests that we have over the years. This is an essential step that we must take.
TRUSTEE MOELLER: I was just going to say, I think there's maybe already something in place. And I would suggest, rather than, I'm not sure exactly you worded it—
CHAIR: I'll read it again. The motion on the floor is "that the Gabriola Fire Protection Improvement District creates a privacy management program in accordance with Freedom of Information and Protection Privacy Act Section 36.2."
TRUSTEE MOELLER: Okay, well, not against it, but I'm not sure the GFPID can create that program. That's more of a Department side thing, I think. And so I'd just rather see a select committee that first of all looks at what we currently do, and then maybe reports back to the board and comes with some recommendations. Does that make sense?
TRUSTEE MOHER: I was pretty much online with that as well. It's an intriguing idea. I'd like to look at at that section to see what they're talking about, and because some things line up with some groups, other things line up with other groups, and what it looks like for us as opposed to another group. So I would recommend highly that it be part of either our policy improvement reviews, and then it becomes part of that whole package, that we put it in with that, because we want to look ahead to those adjustments as well. So rather than having multiple tiny little select committees running around doing a bunch of different things, that it becomes part of a larger thing that we're looking at a few things and doing them well, together, because I think everything starts to hit on each other, and we can save ourselves some work by doing them at the same time.
NOTE: OIPC provides detailed resources to help organizations create Privacy Management Programs:
CHAIR: Are there any further comments?
TRUSTEE BUSSLER: Just to clarify, it’s something that's required by law?
TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Yes.
TRUSTEE MOELLER: So are you referring specifically to the GFPID records, not the fire department, incident reports, personnel records, like, what kind of—
TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: It covers all of that.
TRUSTEE MOELLER: Okay, so that's, that's kind of what I was trying to determine. And so, I mean, like for the board to come up with a program for the department would be kind of an overreach of our powers, but we can—
CHAIR: That's false. All of the records management legally falls on the commissioned corporate entity, which is the improvement district. Because the fire department exists by an act of the improvement district, all of the records of the fire department are under the custody of the improvement district and subject to that. It's also true that there are nuances and fine points about that who rightly has access, how that should be secured and controlled.
FACTCHECK: who sets policy with regard to the Fire Department?
How policy is implemented may be affected by operational considerations, but the policy itself is within the purview of the board. The Improvement District Trustees’ Handbook states:
(p6) Trustees have several roles including that of community representative, steward of a public service, policy-maker and law-maker.
(p7) As policy makers, trustees are not directly involved in the operation and administration of the public services for which they are responsible - that duty falls to their employees.
(p17) A board of trustees has the authority to hire employees to manage the day-to-day operation and administration of the improvement district, to provide support to the board and to implement board decisions.
Every improvement district is required to establish two corporate officer positions. One position is responsible for corporate administration and the second is responsible for financial administration.
(p18) Trustees are elected to provide leadership, not to operate and administer the day-to-day operation of the improvement district. A trustee who handles financial transactions (for example) could provoke public concerns about fiscal improprieties, whether they exist or not. Also, the actions of a trustee who works on the improvement district's water system could have serious implications if they were to inadvertently damage the water system, or injure themselves.
Similarly, employees do not make policy decisions on behalf of the improvement district. The two roles are independent and a blurring of these roles can result in situations where employees are given conflicting instructions by trustees, or a trustee interferes with an employee's duties. Trustees, in turn, may feel that an employee is over-stepping their role by taking actions that are inconsistent with the board's policies.
CHAIR: Having heard these concerns, I'm going to use my prerogative as chair of a small group to put forth an amendment to the motion. So I'm going to move that we amend the motion on the floor to strike the words “Gabriola Fire Protection Improvement District creates” and … I move “that trustee Chorneyko be empowered to draft an outline of what would be required for a privacy management program in accordance with FIPPA 36.2 and report to the board at the next meeting”. […] And what essentially this does is commissions, a select committee of one, to research and report. […] Is there a second to my proposed amendment? [seconded] So now my proposed amendment of the original motion is on the floor for discussion or debate. An amendment can only be amended once.
TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: I'll speak to it. You know, there's not enough information at this table for people to be comfortable with this. So basically, this is me going getting more information. I'll have it—in order to get it in the next meeting, I'll have to have the information to this board a week ahead of time to get it into the agenda, and then it will give you a week to consider that. And so I think this is a fair path forward.
TRUSTEE MOHER: I would like to speak to the fact that I believe we should have either withdrawn the first motion and then put forth an amended motion, or we vote down the first motion and vote for the [amendment]. I believe that Paula could speak to—
CHAIR: No, no, we're not taking advice from the floor. The chair decides points of order. And the correct point of procedure is that a motion is put forward, and then you can amend the motion.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: That’s a substantive change, not an amendment.
CHAIR: My motion to amend is that the words “Gabriola Fire Protection Improvement District creates” be stricken, and replaced with the words, “that trustee Chorneyko draft an outline of what would be required to—” Like, you can argue against the amendment. You can vote against the amendment. But you can't argue with me about whether or not it's proper to consider it as an amendment, because the rules say the Chair rules on points of order. If you want to challenge my point of order, you can make the motion, “Shall the chair be sustained?” And then we vote to see whether or not my judgment passes. Do you wish to so move?
TRUSTEE MOHER: Yes, I do.
FACTCHECK: voting on amended motions
CHAIR: Shall the chair be sustained in the decision that this constitutes an amendment of the previous motion? This is now a vote without debate, all in favor of the chair being sustained in the determination. Please raise your hands. That means that if you're in favor of me being of me being sustained, of me being right, then my judgment is correct. We move forward with discussion of this amendment. If you decide that my judgment is, as a body if you decide that my judgment is incorrect, then this amendment disappears. We roll back to the original motion, and someone else can propose an amendment, someone else can call the business, and then we just vote on the original motion. So those in favor of the chair being sustained, which means my judgement that this is an amendment stands, please raise a hand. So that's one two, so that’s three, I'm also going to vote in favor of me being sustained cause that’s a tie, that’s 3 for, 3 against. I cast the deciding vote.
Okay, so then the amendment remains under consideration, the point of order that was raised by trustee Moher is defeated. And we then move back to consideration of the amended motion, which is “that trustee Chernenko draft an outline of what would be required to create a privacy management program in accordance with FIPPA 36.2 and report at the next general meeting.” Is there any comment or debate or motion to amend that amendment? Seeing none, we can vote on that amendment. So this is not whether we adopt it. This is just whether it replaces that original first motion. All in favor of moving forward with the amendment, please raise your hand. That's unanimous. Okay, so now this is the matter under consideration, whether or not we charge trustee Chorneyko with this piece of business. It's been moved. It's been seconded. Now we vote. It’s been amended, and now we vote. So all in favor of adopting the motion that for the resolution “that trustee Chorneyko would draft an outline of what would be required to create a privacy management program in accordance with FIPPA 36.2 and report at the next general meeting,” please indicate by raising your hands that you're in favor of this motion That's carried. […]
Okay, that's that item of business dispatched unless anyone has a further motion. The suggested motions exist but are not being considered. Does anybody else have anything about Privacy Commissioner, Freedom of Information, protection of privacy stuff?
Select committee for reviewing FOI policy and procedures
TRUSTEE BUSSLER: Yes, I do actually like your first suggested motion, because what we've talked about here with Trustee Chorneyko deals with a system, but it doesn't deal with mitigating some of the costs that we've recently seen and that the prior chair talked about on a regular basis. So I would like to propose that we create a select committee that looks at how we are, what ability we might have for reducing future costs. So the fact that we're using a law firm, for example, to do some of these FOI requests seems excessive.
CORPORATE OFFICER: That is a specialized case, that is a very specialized case. [unintelligible]
TRUSTEE BUSSLER: But establishing clarity around that—
CHAIR: So are you moving the suggested motion? A modification of the suggested motion?
TRUSTEE BUSSLER: I move the suggested motion.
CHAIR: Just the suggested motion. Okay, so trustee Bussler is moving the first of the two suggested motions noted under the Privacy and Freedom of Information business. Is there a second for that motion? Trustee Chernenko is seconding the motion. I will read it as written. Once it's been read out, it's open for consideration by the board. The motion that is before us is
THAT the board establish a select committee to establish the handling of freedom of information requests and generate recommendations for the purpose of reducing future costs, and that the Committee be empowered to examine the practice of behavioral Fire Protection Improvement District, the policies of other improvement districts, and to seek consultation with subject matter experts. The committee will report to the board within 60 days.
Is there anyone who would like to address the motion before us?
TRUSTEE MOHER: This is different from the one that you just said, where you're going to come and give us the stuff that can tell us how to—?
TRUSTEE BUSSLER: Yes.
TRUSTEE MOHER: And how will this be different than already having something established to tell us how we're going to do it?
CHAIR: Trustee Chorneyko has proposed researching a particular plan for handling our records and how they're organized. This addresses empowering a committee, more generally, to look at how requests are received, how they are processed, how other improvement districts manage Freedom of Information Act requests, how we've done it in the past. And consultation with subject matter experts, to my mind, means with—maybe someone who's an attorney, you can always call up the Information Privacy Commissioner office and seek advice from them, just in terms of advice, how it would be dealt with, that kind of thing. And so my understanding of this motion is that it would be that general overview, rather than trustee Chorneyko’s particular charge to make a plan for how we organize [?].
TRUSTEE BUSSLER: And then furthermore, then a thing this would do is look at the type of records that are typically stocked, and maybe we can make them more publicly available, looking at that level of scrutiny as well. So again, just to mitigate some of these costs, and what are our alternatives in terms of, should we be looking at other consultants to do this work, can we do it ourselves.
CHAIR: So to my mind, and please feel free to interrupt to contribute, that sort of consideration could be properly the work of the committee that's working on this motion, rather than having to specify the [unintelligible].
TRUSTEE BUSSLER: Yeah.
CHAIR: So anybody else to talk about the motion before us?
TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: I just strongly support this. I wrote a letter to the editor about this. I think that it's up to this board to assume responsibility for these FOI costs. Before, it was just a matter of stating the cost and blaming. So it's about us taking responsibility and I strongly support that.
CHAIR: Further comments?
After some discussion, two amendments were made to the original motion. The final motion carried read:
THAT the board establish a select committee consisting of trustees Bussler, Appel and Johnson to examine the handling of FOI requests and generate recommendations for the purpose of reducing future costs. That the Committee be empowered to examine the practice of the GFPID, the policies of other improvement districts, and to seek consultation on subject matter experts. The committee will report to the board within 90 days.
As videos of the meetings are generally posted online within a week of the meeting on the gabriolafire.ca Upcoming Meetings page, GFPIDchronicles does not attempt to transcribe all details of meetings. Our reports and transcriptions include:
- Questions asked and answered
- Procedures relating to matters that were some way contentious, with fact-checking on statements made
Notes on the transcription: repetitions and redundant words have been removed. Other excised sections are noted with […] and any text which could not be made out is indicated with [unintelligible] or [?]. Any added comments on or descriptions of the proceedings are italicized, or if made inline are indicated by [ED:]. When interjections are made by audience members they are quoted but no attempt has been made to identify particular people speaking.