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Post by Low Light Mike on Sept 15, 2010 11:29:41 GMT -8
This new thread is set up so that we can discuss the various Freedom-of-information (FOI) requests & releases that BCFS notes on their webpage. I expect that there will be a backlog of requests from the get-go, and once they are released we can see them here. BCFS has said that they will publicize all FOI request and also the BCFS response of information. Here is the web-page on the BCFS site for info on the FOI requests: www.bcferries.com/about/foi/index.html
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Post by Low Light Mike on Oct 1, 2010 5:56:19 GMT -8
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Post by Low Light Mike on Oct 1, 2010 6:00:27 GMT -8
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Post by Low Light Mike on Oct 9, 2010 7:42:00 GMT -8
Some of the other FOI requests from "individuals":
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...and a couple of the newer requests from Vancouver Sun
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Post by plansea on Oct 11, 2010 13:20:26 GMT -8
Critics blast B.C. Ferries over FOI plans Group says corporation strategy will limit requests Walter Cordery, Daily News Published: Monday, October 11, 2010
B.C. Ferries Services Inc. is thwarting the original intent of the province's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act by utilizing a process to discourage FOI requests, according to the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association.
B.C. Ferries announced in September that starting Oct. 1, the quasi-private company would respond to FOI requests.
Vincent Gogolek, the policy director of the association, said the conditions imposed by B.C. Ferries for these requests is unfair and designed to discourage those who want information. His organization has filed a complaint about the policy with Elizabeth Denham, B.C.'s privacy and information commissioner.
The complaint states the association "considers this policy to be a pre-emption of the rights of requesters and highly destructive to the purposes and proper functioning of the Act."
Nanaimo NDP MLA Leonard Krog said that ever since the Liberals were first elected in 2001, the government has eroded the terms of the freedom of information policy brought in by the New Democrats.
"This was considered the model and was pointed to for its thoroughness by governments across the country but the Liberals have gutted the original intent of the legislation which allows B.C. Ferries Service to implement such a policy," Krog said.
B.C. Ferries plans to charge the maximum allowable fees to anybody making a freedom of information request and will release any and all released information on the B.C. Ferries website and then will send a news release to media outlets detailing what information has been released and where to find it.
"It is outrageous for B.C. Ferries to charge fees while refusing to do their legal duty to assist requesters," said Gogolek.
"What public interest group or media outlet will take on the arduous task of working through the FOI request process and paying what often are ridiculous fees if the records they ask for are put up on B.C. Ferries' website first?
"The eventual outcome will be what B.C. Ferries intends: A huge drop in requests, with the result that very little information will actually be posted and available to the public."
Krog agrees, saying B.C. Ferries has "bought into the culture of secrecy" that the Liberal government started to cultivate shortly after coming to power.
"I'm certainly not surprised by how B.C. Ferries plans to handle FOI requests. Disappointed yes, but not surprised," he said.
"When we brought in the freedom of information legislation, we were told it was the most forward-thinking in the country and we had many other jurisdictions following our lead."
© The Daily News (Nanaimo) 2010
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Post by Low Light Mike on Oct 20, 2010 14:40:20 GMT -8
FYI for FOI updates: www.bcferries.com/about/foi/tracker.html- all of the FOI requests have "open" status, meaning that the information has not yet been given to the requestor and not yet published on the webpage. Once that starts to happen (in the next few weeks, I think), the real fun will begin. --------------- Some new FOI requests that I found interesting: - this one is pretty specific. I wonder what the issue or concern is here?
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Post by Northern Exploration on Oct 20, 2010 16:56:02 GMT -8
I wonder if someone is looking for a business opportunity. I wonder also if somehow there is some value in the unused leases. Something also twigs that at some point there was some controversy about cellular contracts.
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Post by uricanejack on Oct 20, 2010 22:14:14 GMT -8
FOI about dogs? oh well.
My dog doesn't like being left alone on the car deck which is a bit of a pain someone has to stay with her.
Have they ever allowed dogs upstaris?
If they do what about my cat?
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Post by lmtengs on Oct 21, 2010 14:16:43 GMT -8
I guess if your dog was well-trained, you could put on some really dark sun-glasses, put a leash on your dog, and let your dog 'lead' you around the ship... Wouldn't work with your cat though
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Post by Dane on Oct 25, 2010 16:29:18 GMT -8
Some new ones up today:
10-060
§ Record of when the problem causing the Spirit of BC sailings on October 3, 2010 to be cancelled was noticed.
§ Record describing the problem detected.
§ Record describing if this problem is the same as or is connected to any previous problem.
§ Records as to steps taken to repair the problem.
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10-061 Records concerning the placement of and operation of video surveillance cameras at the Tsawwassen terminal, together with records concerning the placement and wording of notifications to the public that they are being recorded.
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10-064 A record of fares charged on each of the routes presently and indicating the time and amount of increases which have occurred in the last 25 years.
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10-065 Records concerning the placement of and operation of video surveillance cameras at the Departure Bay terminal, together with records concerning the placement and wording of notifications to the public that they are being recorded.
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10-071 All communications from the FOI shop of BC Ferries to BC Ferries personnel, excluding those concerning the processing of specific FOI requests. All communications to the FOI shop from BC Ferries personnel, excluding those concerning the processing of specific FOI requests.
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10-073 Records concerning the placement of and operation of video surveillance cameras at the Duke Point terminal, together with records concerning the placement and wording of notifications to the public that they are being recorded.
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10-078
§ Copy of contract with White Spot.
§ Copy of other bids for the food services which White Spot provides and which were amongst those to be considered in awarding White Spot the contract.
§ Records concerning the deliberations which took place in deciding that White Spot was to be awarded the contract.
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10-079 Records concerning the placement of and operation of video surveillance cameras at the Swartz Bay terminal, together with records concerning the placement and wording of notifications to the public that they are being recorded.
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10-086 The cost(s) incurred by BC Ferries in displaying the company logo at centre ice, on the scoreboard, and sideboard locations during Vancouver Canucks games at GM place (now Rogers Arena) during the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 seasons.
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bargain
Oiler (New Member)
Posts: 44
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Post by bargain on Oct 29, 2010 10:02:30 GMT -8
There is now a few completed FOI requests up on the tracking page.
One response states the information is available publicly and the others state:
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Post by Low Light Mike on Oct 29, 2010 10:16:24 GMT -8
There is now a few completed FOI requests up on the tracking page. One response states the information is available publicly and the others state: yeah, I got excited for a few moments when I saw some FOI requests with status "completed", but then I realized that they just addressed the easy responses first.
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Post by Low Light Mike on Oct 29, 2010 13:26:25 GMT -8
yeah, I got excited for a few moments when I saw some FOI requests with status "completed", but then I realized that they just addressed the easy responses first. Takes time to research complex subjects. Patience. Who was being impatient?
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Post by Dane on Nov 14, 2010 14:44:09 GMT -8
I had not been following the Vancouver Sun's BC Ferry FOI request mini-site (a.k.a. blog) but took a look today at what is there. Several interesting blogs posted by Chad Skelton, and I hope he keeps up the heat. Despite an earlier doltish comment in this thread I had a feeling research time was not an issue with these FOI's, but rather BC Ferries unbounded dedication to collecting all applicable fees, and taking their sweet time to do it. Most of these requests should be very easy for BCFS to pull up, particularly in the three hour time window Mr. Skelton explains they have to oeprate before charging the requester. The FOI Micro-Site at Vancouver Sun: www.vancouversun.com/news/BC-ferries-investigation/index.htmlInteresting article on fees: communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/papertrail/archive/2010/10/26/bc-ferries-nickel-and-dimes-freedom-of-information-requesters.aspx BC Ferries nickel and dimes Freedom of Information requesters By Chad Skelton 26 Oct 2010 Earlier this month, I wrote about how BC Ferries -- which was coming under the Freedom of Information Act for the first time in seven years -- was planning to "charge as many fees as it legally can" to those who request records from the ferry corporation. They weren't kidding. Yesterday I got a pile of fee estimate letters for my first batch of Freedom of Information requests to BC Ferries. The biggest fee was for $439.04, and a number of other ones were in the hundreds of dollars. What's more interesting, though, is that half of the requests -- 10 in all -- were for the same token fee: $12.54. None of those 10 requests incurred any search fees -- all 10, presumably, fall under the three hours of free search time mandated by law. But BC Ferries is charging, for each one, the 15 minutes it says it will take them to "prepare records for disclosure" -- presumably the time it takes to scan the documents into PDFs and email them to me. When I asked BC Ferries about its hard line on fees last month, spokesman Mark Stefanson said the corporation made "no apologies for charging fees. ... We're going to be tying up staff time doing this research and we want to make sure that it's at least cost-neutral for us." But I wondered: How much time is it taking BC Ferries to write up all these fee letters? I gave Jason Eamer-Goult, BC Ferries' FOI coordinator, a call and asked him. "It takes about 15 minutes to half an hour," he told me. So let me get this straight, I asked: BC Ferries is having you spend half an hour of your time to demand payment for 15 minutes of staff time? How is that cost effective? I pointed out that other government agencies have told me they don't charge for such trivial amounts on FOI requests precisely because, in the end, it costs them more to process than the amount they're charging requesters. "I'm not the person to talk to on that," he said. I put in a call to BC Ferries media relations staff and got a call back, instead, from BC Ferries CEO David Hahn. Hahn repeated the argument that the ferry corporation is charging fees to keep its costs down, not discourage requesters. "I don’t think the people that ride the ferries should have higher fares because everyone has to do FOI requests," he said. But how is it cost effective , I asked him, to have BC Ferries staff spend more time writing fee letters than the time it would take to just send out the records to the requester? "I don't think we're trying to segregate requests by big versus small versus medium," he said. "I think we've made a decision we'll treat them all the same so there's no second-guessing any kind of agendas." BC Ferries' policy of charging requesters for trivial amounts of staff time isn't the only unusual thing about its approach to FOI fees. Government regulations state that agencies can't charge more than $30/hour for search and preparation time. Yet the fee estimate letters we got from BC Ferries charge us $44.80 an hour. Apparently that's because BC Ferries is treating The Vancouver Sun as a "commercial applicant", which means they can charge the actual cost of retrieving the records, even if that's more than the legal maximums. Generally speaking, commercial applicants are those who are filing FOI requests for a private interest rather than the public interest -- like a road-paving company seeking information on past government construction contracts. B.C.'s Information Commissioner has ruled at least twice -- in rulings here and here -- that while newspapers are generally for-profit companies, journalists should not be considered commercial applicants when they're seeking records for the purpose of writing news stories and informing the public. Hahn didn't seem that interested in prior rulings from the Commissioner. He said the Act, in his view, clearly states that a commercial applicant is any organization which makes a profit. Which, in BC Ferries' view, includes The Vancouver Sun. If The Sun doesn't agree, he said, "you should challenge it [to the Commissioner] and let her make a ruling." Which is what we're going to do. Go to our BC Ferries FOI homepage for information on how you can file your own requests. And check out the rest of my blog posts on BC Ferries. And here's a copy of one of the fee estimate letters we got from BC Ferries: www.scribd.com/doc/40170655/BC-Ferries-FOI-Letter
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Post by Scott on Nov 16, 2010 17:26:22 GMT -8
CKNW has gone with a FOI request as their top story all afternoon - it must be a slow news day because to most of us, I don't think this is news. I don't know why they had to go through FOI to get this info... they could has asked any of the hundreds of BC Ferries employees or David Hahn himself and gotten the answer free of charge, at any time. But they created this news story and are trying to stir up controversy: www.cknw.com/Channels/Reg/NewsLocal/Story.aspx?ID=1312520Christy Clark had about half an hour on the issue. David Hahn phoned up and took issue with some of the things she was alleging. It was actually quite a heated argument back and forth for about 15 minutes. If you can go back to the audio vault on CKNW, it was between 1:00 PM and 1:45. David Hahn was pretty convincing... and most of the listeners sided with him in the few calls that followed him.
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Post by Ferryman on Nov 22, 2010 11:36:03 GMT -8
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D'Elete BC in NJ
Voyager
Dispensing gallons of useless information daily...
Posts: 1,671
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Post by D'Elete BC in NJ on Nov 24, 2010 3:54:06 GMT -8
Thanks for that. The author is a good friend of my dad's and he would have likely missed seeing the letter if you hadn't posted it.
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Post by Low Light Mike on Dec 9, 2010 19:10:58 GMT -8
Some FOI info released today, on the BCFS website: - all my items posted come from this page: www.bcferries.com/about/foi/tracker.html================= #10-001 Salaries: Top salaries of active employees: - this is 23 pages long, for all employees > $75,000 in total compensation. You'll see lots of officers & engineers, including some huge special pmts (likely overtime) to some ship personnel. Those who are familiar with some of the officers & long-term employees might see some familiar names. www.bcferries.com/files/foi/2010-001-current-employees.pdfTop salaries of former employees: www.bcferries.com/files/foi/2010-001-former-employees.pdf================= #10-004 Mayne Island reports - discussed in this thread: ferriesbc.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=bcferriesnews&thread=7602&page=3#126319=============== And a funny request where someone wanted to know about a "corporate chef", and then didn't respond to BCFS emails asking for clarification about the request of a non-existant position. - An example (and there are many like this) where BCFS is strict in their answers being directed only to the specifics of the request. People who are doing FOI requests are going to learn that they have to choose their words very carefully.
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Neil
Voyager
Posts: 7,264
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Post by Neil on Dec 10, 2010 0:18:43 GMT -8
#10-001 Salaries: Top salaries of active employees: - this is 23 pages long, for all employees > $75,000 in total compensation. You'll see lots of officers & engineers, including some huge special pmts (likely overtime) to some ship personnel. Those who are familiar with some of the officers & long-term employees might see some familiar names. www.bcferries.com/files/foi/2010-001-current-employees.pdfFirst of all, very disappointed not to see Chris's name in the top wage earners. Better bulk up on the OT next year, pal. We need at least one Forum member on the gravy train. (Poutine boat?) Secondly, this list seems to contradict the allegations of a now inactive Forum member that BC Ferries is absolutely awash in highly paid management. You only have to go part way down page one, out of twenty three, before you're into the shipboard staff. From then on, it looks to me that officers and crew by far make up the bulk of top paid employees. There's a deck hand who doesn't earn a heck of a lot less than Deborah Marshall. If there is indeed a Manager of Broom Closets, as our member seemed to be alleging, he or she is making less than 75 grand, which by today's standards does not exactly fit the criteria for a fat cat.
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Quatchi
Voyager
Engineering Officer - CCG
Posts: 930
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Post by Quatchi on Dec 10, 2010 9:50:19 GMT -8
After taking a quick scroll through that list, it doesn't seem too bad to me. Beside the first page it looks like most of the guys who earn more than 100K either got an arsload of OT or worked their way up the ladder to Master or C/E, shouldn't these people be compensated fairly for their work and responsibilities? Sure Hahn makes a fair chunk of change, but I quite like the guy, he's a capitalist, if we decrease his pay to much he'll go work somewhere else.
Overall, the numbers are a little higher that I would have expected, but I didn't expect OT payments hitting 40K. Most of the shipboard guys have a salary around 80K - 100K for senior positions, this seems to jive with what I have heard about the Coast Guard employees.
I don't really know much about management Salaries, but basic logic says the managers must make more than the people they manage, or the ladder breaks.
Cheers,
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2010 11:07:15 GMT -8
Quote, "You'll see lots of officers & engineers"
FYI...Engineers are licenced ships officers.
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Quatchi
Voyager
Engineering Officer - CCG
Posts: 930
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Post by Quatchi on Dec 10, 2010 11:32:39 GMT -8
True, noleaks, but its more a descriptor of the position of officer I guess. Although by that logic they should be engineers and navigators.
Cheers,
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Post by Low Light Mike on Dec 10, 2010 11:40:21 GMT -8
True, noleaks, but its more a descriptor of the position of officer I guess. Although that logic they should be engineers and navigators. Cheers, I have the same terminolgy issue on a music-team that I play with. We're all musicians, and then we differentiate ourselves as "instrumentalists" and "vocalists". If we say "musicians and singers", then the singers take exception because they are musicians too; they use their voice. Thanks for the reply, Mr. No Leaks (and welcome back too).
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2010 12:14:34 GMT -8
lol, Just Sayen Thanks for the welcome too!
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Post by Curtis on Dec 11, 2010 0:18:44 GMT -8
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