Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Jurisdiction of the Information Commissioner under section 30(1) of the Access to Information Act (ATIA) was central to the dispute.

• The applicant’s document request was held to fall outside the formal ATIA process, limiting the Commissioner's oversight.

• The 60-day statutory time limit under section 31 of the ATIA was enforced against the applicant's third complaint.

• Applicant attempted to conflate CRA audit disclosures with access to information requests, which the court rejected.

• Redactions applied by CRA were deemed unrelated to ATIA exemptions, weakening the applicant’s challenge.

• The court found the Commissioner's decision reasonable under the administrative law standard from Vavilov.

Facts and outcome of the case

This case arose from a judicial review application brought by Andrew Chabursky against the Attorney General of Canada. The issue stemmed from a decision made by the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada (OIC), which declined to investigate Mr. Chabursky’s third complaint regarding access to redacted Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) documents and the failure to provide digital versions of net worth schedules. Mr. Chabursky had previously initiated multiple complaints related to delays and redactions by the CRA in response to his Access to Information Act (ATIA) request concerning tax years 2008–2017.

The background to this dispute involves the CRA’s audit of Mr. Chabursky’s tax returns for 2010, 2011, and 2012, leading to reassessments and a series of back-and-forth exchanges. Mr. Chabursky had filed a Notice of Objection and requested supporting documentation, including working papers and net worth schedules, some of which were redacted. Dissatisfied with the redactions and the CRA's failure to provide electronic versions of certain documents, he submitted a third complaint to the OIC. The OIC refused to investigate on two grounds: (1) the documents were provided through the CRA’s audit process, not under a formal ATIA request, thus falling outside its jurisdiction; and (2) the complaint about the net worth schedules was filed after the 60-day statutory deadline prescribed by section 31 of the ATIA.

The Federal Court, presided over by Justice Manson, upheld the OIC’s refusal. The court concluded that the working papers were disclosed as part of the CRA’s internal audit process—not in response to an ATIA request—and were therefore outside the OIC’s investigatory mandate. Furthermore, the court found the third complaint was clearly filed outside the permissible 60-day timeframe, as Mr. Chabursky had knowledge of the CRA’s refusal by July 14, 2023, at the latest, but only submitted his complaint on September 29, 2023.

Applying the reasonableness standard of review established in Vavilov, the court found that the OIC’s decision met the criteria of justification, transparency, and intelligibility. The application for judicial review was dismissed.

Following the hearing, the parties agreed on costs in the amount of $2,000 to be paid by Mr. Chabursky to the Attorney General of Canada. The court found the amount to be reasonable and ordered the payment accordingly.