CBRM to release port contract details after privacy commissioner's report
Solicitor says CBRM doesn't believe it broke the law by withholding documents but will release more
The Cape Breton Regional Municipality hopes to release most of the documents related to an exclusive port marketing contract five years after a journalist requested the details through a freedom of information request.
The municipality's regional solicitor, Demetri Kachafanas, said he disagrees with a recent report by the province's information and privacy commissioner that found CBRM broke the law when it withheld hundreds of pages related to the request.
Nevertheless, he said the file is being reviewed with an eye toward disclosure.
"It's five years after the application, so I don't know what's still relevant or not, but it's our hope that most, if not all, of the documents will be disclosed," Kachafanas said in an update to council this week.
CBRM released 28 pages
In 2015, independent journalist Mary Campbell asked the municipality for documents on its decision to award the marketing contract to a private company called Harbour Port Development Partners.
The municipality came back with 28 pages. After a review, privacy commissioner Tricia Ralph said CBRM failed to conduct a proper search, unnecessarily withheld 862 pages and failed to locate more than 41 others.
Coun. Gordon MacDonald urged staff to release most of the documents this week, saying the lack is disclosure is unacceptable to taxpayers.
"It allows everybody in the public to wonder what the heck we're hiding, and I, for one, wonder what we're hiding when we're redacting that much information," said MacDonald. "I suggest that the municipality throw it out on the table. Let them see what they want to see."
Coun. Eldon MacDonald agreed most of the information should be released, but he said the municipality signed legally binding non-disclosure agreements with Harbour Port Development Partners, now known as Sydney Harbour Investment Partners or SHIP.
"That entity deserves the respect of allowing that file to be gone through and looked at to make sure what's being released is not going to jeopardize any of their proprietary negotiations," he said.
SHIP says it's close to deal
SHIP principals Albert Barbusci and Barry Sheehy won the exclusive right to market Sydney's port in an attempt to attract international partners in a proposed container terminal.
The company has said it is close to announcing a deal, but the province first needs to guarantee the discontinued rail line across Cape Breton Island will be upgraded and maintained.
In her report, Ralph said CBRM should go back and conduct a proper search and then release all the records. Kachafanas said Jim Gogan of Breton Law Group, the municipality's port file counsellor, initially recommended holding back most of the information.
The municipality needs the next 60 days to go through the nearly 900 pages of documents to ensure there is no longer any need to keep them confidential, said Kachafanas.
"That's why we want to go through them again. I don't think it's to hide anything, but it's to make sure that we're not disclosing anything that shouldn't [or] can't be disclosed," he said.
The information and privacy commissioner's office only has the power to recommend and cannot enforce its recommendations.
The office said the applicant would have to go to court in a bid to force the municipality to comply if they want to pursue the matter further.
Campbell said she is weighing her options, but is waiting to see how much information CBRM releases before deciding what to do.
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