Solicitor-Client Privilege Survives Public Debate: IPC Order MO-4778 and Other Municipal Compliance Updates

The Information and Privacy Commissioner published a batch of new orders on April 1, including three municipal orders that each give clerks something practical. The headline is MO-4778, which confirms that public council debate of a policy topic does not, on its own, waive solicitor-client privilege over the legal opinions behind it. Alongside that, MO-4779 is a useful reminder about the limits of the personal privacy exemption for location data, and MO-4777 gives a documented benchmark for defending a reasonable search. On the human rights side, a preliminary dismissal of a permit-related application against a small Ontario municipality is directly useful, and three broader-public-sector decisions from the same week illustrate Rule 1.7 and parallel-proceedings patterns that may be instructive for municipal employers in similar postures — subject to a full read of each decision.

Privacy and FOI

Solicitor-Client Privilege Holds After Public Debate — MO-4778

IPC Order MO-4778 (Appeal MA24-00081, County of Haliburton, March 16, 2026) addresses a question that comes up more often than clerks might expect: does solicitor-client privilege under section 12 of MFIPPA survive when council has already discussed the policy topic in open session?

The County of Haliburton denied access to two legal opinions about short-term rental licensing in waterfront residential zoning. The appellant argued the county had waived privilege through public discussion of the STR by-law and by sharing the opinions with a lower-tier municipality within the county. Adjudicator Jessica Kowalski rejected both arguments and upheld the exemption.

On the public-discussion point, the adjudicator applied settled law: waiver requires a voluntary act by the client demonstrating an intention to waive privilege. Public discussion of the underlying policy question does not, on its own, amount to disclosure of the legal advice itself, and general references to “having received legal advice” do not waive privilege over the content of that advice.

On the common-interest point, the order confirms that sharing a legal opinion with a lower-tier municipality that shares a common interest in the matter does not, without more, constitute waiver. That is directly relevant to upper-tier counties and regional municipalities whose solicitors routinely share opinions with their lower-tier partners on issues of mutual interest.

What this means for your office: If a requester argues that public council debate of a bylaw or policy means you must release the legal opinion behind it, MO-4778 is your citation. Distinguish the policy question (which may have been public) from the legal analysis (which is privileged). If your municipality participates in common-interest arrangements with neighbouring municipalities — regional infrastructure, shared services, common by-law frameworks — the order also confirms that information-sharing in that context does not, by itself, waive privilege. One operational caution: the waiver analysis still turns on the contents and handling of the actual record. Quoting from the opinion in a public council report, attaching it to an agenda package, or paraphrasing its specific legal conclusions in open session is a different question and may put privilege at risk. Worth filing alongside your next section 12 exemption claim.

Location Information Can Fall Outside “Personal Information” — MO-4779

IPC Order MO-4779 (Appeal MA24-01007, Municipality of Kincardine, March 19, 2026) addressed an access request arising from the Municipality of Kincardine’s 2024 decision to destroy the Secord monument. The appellant sought “the method of destruction and location of the rubble.” The municipality withheld the location information under the mandatory personal privacy exemption in section 14(1) of MFIPPA.

Adjudicator Kowalski found the withheld location information was not personal information at all, applying the section 2(1) definition of “personal information” in MFIPPA as “recorded information about an identifiable individual.” A location, without more, is not information about a person. Because the information was not personal information to begin with, section 14(1) could not apply, and the municipality was ordered to disclose the location name.

What this means for your office: MO-4779 is a narrow holding on specific facts, not a blanket rule that location data is never personal information — a home address tied to a named complainant, for instance, is a different analysis. But if your office applies reflexive section 14(1) redactions to addresses, site locations, or geographic coordinates without asking whether the information actually identifies a specific individual, the order is a good prompt to revisit that practice. The test runs in both directions: if the location cannot reasonably be connected to an identifiable individual, the personal privacy exemption does not reach it.

Reasonable Search — MO-4777

IPC Order MO-4777 (Appeal MA25-00235, Municipality of Chatham-Kent, March 13, 2026) is a useful reasonable-search benchmark. The appellant requested records about the creation of Chatham-Kent’s Deputy Chief Administrative Officer position and tuition and expense records for a specific employee’s degree. Chatham-Kent disclosed responsive records, but the appellant maintained additional records must exist. Adjudicator Kelley Sherwood found the municipality’s search was reasonable under section 17 of MFIPPA and dismissed the appeal.

What made the search defensible was documentation. The municipality filed an affidavit from its Manager of Privacy and Information describing the searches he personally conducted, the locations searched, and the individuals he contacted. The standard is reasonable, not exhaustive — the institution must show an experienced employee knowledgeable in the subject matter made a reasonable effort to locate records reasonably related to the request.

What this means for your office: If you do not already have a standard search-documentation template, build one. At minimum, capture who searched, what systems and physical locations they searched, what search terms they used, and what they found. An affidavit from the staff member who actually conducted the search — not a generic “we looked” email — is what carries weight when a search is challenged. MO-4777 is a clean example of the kind of record the IPC expects.

Provincial Reference — Severing Facts from Advice (PO-4798)

IPC Order PO-4798 (Appeal PA22-00427, Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development, March 19, 2026) is a provincial FIPPA order, but the severance principle applies equally under MFIPPA. The ministry withheld two slide decks about the Worker Income Protection Program (paid sick leave) under section 13(1) of FIPPA (advice or recommendations) and several related emails under section 12(1) (Cabinet records).

Adjudicator Colin Bhattacharjee ordered most of the slide deck content disclosed, finding that most of the information was factual or contextual and did not reveal the advice or recommendations of a public servant — only discrete portions that actually contained advice could be withheld. The Cabinet records finding went the other way: the emails revealed what was discussed at a meeting of a Cabinet committee and were properly withheld under section 12(1).

What this means for your office: The equivalent advice-or-recommendations exemption for municipalities lives in section 7 of MFIPPA. If your practice on staff reports or briefing materials is to withhold the entire document whenever it contains any recommendations, that approach does not align with what the IPC expects. Sever the factual background (disclosable) from the specific advice or recommendations (potentially exempt). It adds processing time, but it is what the Act requires.

Human Rights Tribunal

Permit Refusal Dismissed at Preliminary Stage — Harfoush v. Central Elgin

The most directly useful HRTO decision for municipalities this week is Harfoush v. Central Elgin (Municipality), 2026 HRTO 473. The applicant alleged that the municipality’s refusal to issue a permit was linked to a Human Rights Code ground. The Tribunal found that, even accepting the pleaded facts as true, there was no factual basis from which a Code-based discriminatory connection could be inferred. A bald assertion without pleaded facts was insufficient, and the application was dismissed at the preliminary stage under the plain-and-obvious standard.

What this means for your office: When a municipality denies or conditions a permit and the applicant frames the denial as discrimination, the Tribunal still requires pleaded facts that could link the decision to a Code ground. Your record-keeping on permit decisions matters: a clean, reasons-based paper trail that documents the non-discriminatory basis for the decision is what supports an early dismissal argument if a Code complaint follows. This is a preliminary-stage win, not a merits ruling, but it confirms the standard municipalities can rely on.

Rule 1.7 and Personal Respondents — Lazo and Hamilton-Clark

Two decisions from the same week — Lazo v. Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board, 2026 HRTO 485 and Hamilton-Clark v. Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, 2026 HRTO 464 — applied the Tribunal’s established approach to removing individual respondents under Rule 1.7 of the HRTO Rules of Procedure and section 46.3 of the Human Rights Code. Where a corporate respondent has deemed organizational liability and is able to respond to and remedy an alleged Code infringement, and where an individual manager was acting in the ordinary course of employment rather than engaging in personal misconduct, the Tribunal will typically remove the individual as a personal respondent.

Neither of these is a municipal employer — Dufferin-Peel is a Catholic school board, Sunnybrook is a hospital — so neither decision binds the Tribunal in a municipal proceeding. The reasoning is framework-level and may be instructive when a municipal employer is named alongside one or more individual managers, but any municipality planning to invoke this line of reasoning should read the full text of each decision rather than relying on a summary.

What this means for your office: Treat the municipality as the primary respondent from day one of any HRTO matter involving employment. Your HR and legal response should be from the organization, not from a named manager’s personal capacity. That posture is what keeps Rule 1.7 removal arguments available and reduces the chance individual managers are kept in proceedings where there is no compelling reason to name them personally.

WSIB and Parallel Proceedings — Ersek

Ersek v. La-Point-Fisher Nursing Home, Limited, 2026 HRTO 470 applied section 45.1 of the Human Rights Code to dismiss a parallel HRTO complaint where the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board and the Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal had already addressed the substance of the applicant’s accommodation and return-to-work dispute. The Tribunal’s summary explains that the same factual underpinnings and issues had been dealt with in a prior process that gave the applicant a meaningful opportunity to know and meet the case. The Tribunal also confirmed that WSIAT has concurrent jurisdiction to consider Code matters.

Ersek is a nursing home case, not a municipal case, so municipal employers should read the full decision before leaning on it. That said, the section 45.1 framework itself is the same one a municipal employer would use: thorough WSIB and WSIAT records, including accommodation and return-to-work documentation, are the foundation of any parallel-proceedings dismissal argument when the same facts later show up at the HRTO.

What this means for your office: Your WSIB return-to-work and accommodation files are doing double duty. Beyond their primary role in workplace safety and insurance administration, they are also the foundation of any section 45.1 dismissal argument you might make if a parallel HRTO complaint follows on the same facts. If those files are thin or your accommodation process is informal, the HRTO side becomes much harder to defend. Invest the time in robust documentation at the WSIB stage — it pays off twice.

Action items this week

• File MO-4778 as your reference for section 12 claims when a requester argues that public council debate or common-interest sharing has waived privilege.
• Audit reflexive section 14(1) redactions for location and geographic information. Apply the “about an identifiable individual” test rather than redacting location data by default.
• Build or update your FOI search-documentation template using MO-4777 as the benchmark. At minimum, capture who searched, where, using what terms, and what they found — and be prepared to put it in an affidavit.
• Review how you process staff reports and briefing notes under FOI. The equivalent advice-or-recommendations exemption under MFIPPA is section 7; sever the facts from the specific recommendations rather than withholding whole documents.
• Strengthen your WSIB accommodation and return-to-work files. Robust documentation at that stage is your best shield against parallel HRTO proceedings.

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Cedar Meridian builds compliance software for Ontario municipalities. Our Staff Compliance Manager gives clerks, CAOs, and HR leads an audit-ready record of policy acknowledgements, training completion, and procedural attestations — the kind of evidence that holds up when the IPC, the HRTO, or your insurer asks. If you want to see how it fits into your existing FOI and HR processes, get in touch.