Access to Information can be an endless paper chase, even a bit of a mind game.

Recently, in response to three separate requests, the Department of Public Works replied, “the document does not exist."

Interestingly, with each of these there was an attachment that stated:

“REFUSAL TO CONFIRM OR DENY RECORD EXISTS
10.(1) Where the head of a government institution refuses to give access to a record requested under this Act or a part thereof, the head of the institution shall state in the notice given under paragraph 7(a) that the record does not exist”

It looked like a red flag, one that our reporters who specialize in access had never seen before. That prompted follow-up phone calls to the people who administer the Access to Information Act. It took a week to get the response that the records really do not exist, and that Public Works was just citing the actual wording in the act to convey that informaton.

Public Works appears to be the only department issuing these confusing notices, which are something of a Catch-22. If a document does not exist, the bureaucrats tell you that. But then they tell you exactly the same thing if they feel it is a piece of information they have they right to withold access to.

We've been assured the situation has nothing to do with a recent one at Foreign Affairs where another media organization was told that a document about detainees in Afghanistan did not exist but, as it turned out, it really did exist after all.