UBC’s largest association of professional employees is accusing the university of obstructing the release of information related to a recently filed human rights complaint.
Earlier this month, the Administrative Association of Professional Staff (AAPS), which represents 4,500 UBC employees, filed eight human rights complaintsagainst the school and some of its senior staff.
Now, AAPS Executive Director Joey Hansen said he believes that the university’s consistent struggles in returning Freedom of information (FOI) requests could undermine one of the cases and that it amounts to obstructionism on the part of UBC.
“It essentially wielded its illegal delays in the FOI like … they were trying to squash the human rights complaint,” said Hansen.
FOI requests can be filed by any private individual or organization to obtain records from a public body — with specific exceptions related to things like third-party privacy or another individual's personal information.
Hansen said the AAPS’ two requests were to obtain an employee’s personnel file and to corroborate whether the grounds given for their termination were legitimate before officially filing against the school.
Under BC’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA), FOI requests have to be returned within 30 working days, However, UBC has faced a years-long flood of requests that have caused the office’s response time to reach an average of 151 days in 2018.
The union is alleging that UBC discriminated against six of its members on the basis of disability and pregnancy, including reneging on a promised promotion to an employee after learning she was pregnant.
None of the allegations have been proven in court and the cases will not be heard until next year at the earliest.
Because the BC Human Rights Code maintains that a complaint must be filed within six months of a violation, the AAPS had to choose to file without the potentially important information.
“Based on our experience with the University Counsel's Office on this matter, I would describe it as inconceivable that we would receive this information to meet the for us to your filing deadline under the code,” said Hansen.
Complaints or requests for review about FOI requests can be submitted to the provincial privacy commissioner, who can order institutions to disclose more information. UBC received 31 complaints and requests for review this year.
But Hansen pointed out that processing complaints takes time. Even if the request came back before the end of the six-month period, it would have been difficult to review the records in time to file a complaint.
UBC’s Information and Privacy Counsel Paul Hancock wrote in a statement to The Ubyssey earlier this year that the delay is due to the sheer frequency and complexity of requests it receives, noting the office has tripled its staff since 2013.
Under Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, public bodies are allowed to go beyond the 30-day limit if “meeting the time limit would unreasonably interfere with the operations of the public body.”
But Hansen said the university uses this provision to justify obstructionist practices.
“From our standpoint, I believe it was the university using the fact that it broke one law to protect it from the fact it broke a second law,” said Hansen. “That’s not how the law should work.”
Hancock maintained that the office does not discriminate between requests and aims to respond to each request as quickly as possible.
“AAPS requests were treated like any other requests, and were handled in sequence with all other requests on a first-come, first-served basis,” wrote Hancock in a statement to The Ubyssey.
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