The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Confidentiality of Health Records in Ontario and access to government information.

摘要

The objective of this thesis is to look at the factors which hindered the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Confidentiality of Health Records in Ontario from obtaining government information concerning allegations of illegal access by the RCMP to OHIP's files. The most significant factors were national security and police informer privilege. Other contributing factors such as constitutional jurisdictional limitations will also be considered. This thesis will look at some possible legislative and judicial reforms which would help commissions of inquiry obtain access to government information. The thesis will also demonstrate that the "public interests vs. individual rights" paradigm is too simplistic to describe the situations that confronts commissions such as this Commission. Besides the issue of providing procedural protection for individuals, the Commission also faced the issue of trying to balance the protection of the privacy of individual health subscribers against the public interest in access to information and public safety.