A. The Ombudsman and her employees must respect the confidentiality of any and all information obtained in the course of their interventions/investigations. Moreover, since December 2006, the Cities and Towns Act confirms that such information is not subject to Right of Access legislation and that the Ombudsman and her employees cannot be compelled to testify before any court of law nor to provide any information or deposit any document relating to their interventions/investigations.
All information gathered by the OdM, therefore, remains confidential.
Our office strictly enforces this rule: even citizens who submit a complaint cannot obtain a copy of their whole OdM file: they can only retrieve the documents that they have themselves submitted to our office.
This confidentiality, however, is not absolute:
- When the OdM decides to intervene in a file, she must, under the law, inform the director of the relevant department or borough as well as the General Manager of Ville de Montréal;
- Her closing letter must also be forwarded to these persons;
- Citizens who complain to the OdM must also understand that, in order to investigate and possibly resolve their complaint, we need to communicate sufficient relevant information to the persons who are responsible for the situation under investigation.
