5825-01584 — National Defence

The complainant alleged that the Department of National Defence (DND) improperly refused to issue a new response letter for a request concerning authority to generate Branch Standing Orders. DND stated that no records were found after a thorough search and included additional contextual information and hyperlinks to publicly available documents. The complainant argued this contextual information was speculative and breached DND's duty to assist. The Information Commissioner of Canada (OIC) found that DND's response was complete and appropriate, and the supplementary information was provided in good faith to assist the requester without misrepresenting the search results or creating new records.

• Whether DND improperly refused to issue a new response letter.
• Whether DND's inclusion of contextual information breached its duty to assist requesters.
• Whether DND's response accurately and completely addressed the access request.