Canada
Access to Information Act
R.S.C. 1985, c. A-1
Canada's federal access law, covering the Department of National Defence and Library and Archives Canada. Requests carry a $5 application fee.
The clock
30 calendar days
30 calendar days from receipt, extendable under s. 9 for volume or consultations — extensions of months are routine at defence and security institutions.
DND is among the slower institutions; s. 9 extensions of 90–365 days are common on operational records.
Reading the statute itself
The text of this one is not reproduced here: foreign legislation is published under its own country’s copyright rules, so it is linked instead. Everything on this page — the deadline, the appeal path, the fee standard — is Aletheca’s summary of that text, and the official source is one click away.
If they refuse
- Appeal deadline
- 60 days — calendar days from refusal to complain to the Information Commissioner
- Appeal route
- Complaint to the Information Commissioner of Canada within 60 days, then Federal Court review under s. 41.
- Litigation
- Federal Court review after the Commissioner reports.
Fees and expedition
Fee-waiver standard
$5 application fee; all further fees for electronic records were dropped by directive in 2016, so the fee-waiver question mostly does not arise.
Aletheca argues this on every request it files here. A service that publishes every page it receives, free, to a public archive has an unusually strong showing — considerably stronger than a private requester’s.
Exemptions it allows
- s.13 Received in confidence
- s.15 International affairs and defence
- s.16 Law enforcement
- s.19 Personal information
- s.69 Cabinet confidences
Quirks worth knowing
Canadians, permanent residents and persons present in Canada may file directly; others typically file through a Canadian agent.