I have been an active user of the access-to-information system since the mid-1990s. Since the launch of Map of the Week in the spring of 2008, I have filed about 50 FOI requests with different levels of government in pursuit of geodata. Our best original maps tend to be based on successful FOI requests, since they tend to produce maps which to my knowledge have never been seen in public before.

Sometimes officials are reluctant to meet their obligations under the law. I am an experienced user of Ontario’s FOI appeal system. One request, which I have been working on since the spring of 2008, is now in the early stages of judicial review after the ministry concerned appealed an IPC adjudicator’s decision in my favour.