$15,720 in Victoria FOI Fees for Water and Stormwater Records

 

$15,720 in FOI Estimates — CITY OF VICTORIA - for Records About Your Money and Your Water

$10,935 + $4,335 + $450 = $15,720.

Those are the original search-and-preparation estimates attached to three City of Victoria Freedom of Information requests about stormwater, sewer infrastructure, pollution, public spending and the health information behind swimming at Banfield Park.

Not a new engineering study. Not a new environmental investigation.

Access to existing records.

Among the records sought are publicly funded reports, consultant studies, appendices, monitoring results and the accounting behind municipal infrastructure work.

The $450 request concerns something any parent standing beside the Banfield dock can understand: who was consulted about the health risks, what advice was received, and what assessment supported opening or promoting the area for swimming?

The City estimated 11 hours searching and seven hours preparing those records. Its letter required a $225 deposit before processing could continue. The request covered consultations, reports, risk assessments and related correspondence—not simply one named report.

Before another child jumps into the water, shouldn’t that information be straightforward to find?

This started in the water, not in an FOI office

Canada Wants Europe to Trust Its Environmental Standards — While Cutting the Machinery That Proves Them

 

Canada Wants Europe to Trust Its Environmental Standards — While Cutting the Machinery That Proves Them

Prime Minister Mark Carney went to Europe with an attractive offer.

Canada has energy. We have critical minerals. We have LNG and hydrogen. We have fish, forests, freshwater, Arctic access and enormous natural resources.

Europe has something Canada badly needs: a massive market and an opportunity to become less dependent on the United States and other increasingly uncertain trading partners.

There is nothing wrong with Canada looking east across the Atlantic.

In fact, it probably makes sense.

But there is an uncomfortable question buried underneath all the talk of trusted partners, strategic autonomy and regulatory cooperation:

If Europe is being asked to trust Canada's environmental standards, who in Canada is going to do the science, monitoring, inspection and enforcement needed to prove those standards are actually being met?

That question matters because while Ottawa is promising Europe reliable Canadian resources produced under a strong regulatory system, Ottawa is also cutting and restructuring the departments responsible for fisheries protection, pollution control, environmental science and human health.

At the same time, Canada is speeding up approvals for major projects.

That is where this story gets interesting.

Carney's Offer to Europe

Speaking to the European Parliament on September 17, Carney laid out an ambitious vision for a much deeper Canada-European Union relationship.