ATIP to Health Canada regarding the MMAR

I recently send the below ATIP Request to Health Canada.  A later blog post will outline my correspondence.  Finally, I hope to post the responses when they come in.  Note that by telephone I agreed to have the ATIP folks process each of these bullets as individual requests.  For $5 per request it was worth it to get the responses more quickly.

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Access to Information and Privacy Coordinator


Health Canada


1010 Somerset Street West
1 ^st Floor,


Postal Locator: 2301D


Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0K9

General:

This is a submission under the Access to Information Act.

Background:

Health Canada administers the country’s medical marihuana program under the auspices of the Medical Marihuana Access Regulations.

We are interested in documents and information related to Health Canada’s policies and procedures related to the MMAR program.

Request:

We wish to have access to or copies of:

• All currently utilized policies and procedures related to the intake, processing and issuance of Authorizations to Possess Dried Marihuana, Personal-Use Production Licenses and Designated-Person Production Licenses (collectively, “Licenses”).
• All documents related to complaints received by Health Canada regarding delays associated in the processing and/or issuance of Licenses.
• All records related to planned, discussed and/or implemented changes to Health Canada policies regarding intake, processing, issuance and delays associated with Licenses for the period October 27, 2008 through the present day.
• All records related to consultations, listening sessions (formal or informal) or stakeholder discussions of any kind related to proposed or possible amendments to the MMAR for the period October 27, 2008 through the present day.
• All records referring or relating to the decisions of (1) the Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal in an action known as Canada (Attorney General) v Sfetkopoulos, 2008 FCA 233 and Sfetkopoulos v Canada, 2008 FC 33; and (2) the British Columbia Supreme Court in an action known as R v. Beren 2009 BCSC 429 (and any appeals or applications for leave to appeal therefrom).
• All records related to the Government of Canada licensing any person, organization, business, society or other entity to possess, produce and/or distribute cannabis (marihuana) for any purpose including, without limitation, distribution to the public, production pursuant to contract with Her Majesty, research and/or any other purpose.
• All documents responsive to the following list of previously-responded-to Access to Information requests from the period commencing with the date each such request was processed through and including the present day (in other words, this seeks updated information responsive to the below list but not material previously produced):
  • A-2003-01453 dated March 31, 2004
  • A-2003-01542 dated April 21, 2004
  • A-2004-00513 dated August 31, 2004
  • A-2004-00516 dated October 1, 2004
  • A-2004-00514 dated October 19, 2004
  • A-2004-00517 dated December 14, 2004
  • A-2004-00963 dated January 13, 2005
  • A-2004-01036 dated January 27, 2005
  • A-2004-01305 dated January 28, 2005
  • A-2004-00964 dated February 2, 2005
  • A-2004-00965 dated February 16, 2005
  • A-2004-00515 dated March 7, 2005
  • A-2004-00966 dated March 17, 2005
  • A-2004-01219 dated May 13, 2005
  • A-2004-00513 dated May 17, 2005
  • A-2004-01344 dated June 7, 2005
  • A-2004-00303 dated July 19, 2005 (modified to include costs associated with R v. Beren and Sfetkopolous v. Attorney General of Canada)
  • A-2005-00283 dated August 2, 2005
  • AA-2005-00452 dated September 12, 2005
  • A-2004-01345 dated September 29, 2005
  • A-2005-00453 dated October 4, 2005
  • A-2004-00966 dated November 9, 2005
  • A-2005-01802 dated April 10, 2006 (modified to include briefing notes and other documents provided to any Minister of Health for Canada)
  • A-2004-01343 dated June 21, 2006
  • A-2006-00870 dated January 25, 2007

This request for records includes, but is not limited to, correspondence, briefing notes, memorandum, legal opinions, emails, notes of verbal conversations, call centre records and any studies conducted by or used by Health Canada.

Waiver of Fees:

The Beyond Prohibition Foundation is a non-profit, non-partisan federal corporation dedicated to protecting the public interest.  We ask that the application fee be refunded, and that the department use its discretion to waive all other fees.

Application Fee:

Attached is a cheque to the amount of $5.

Delay

To the extent that it will facilitate faster processing of any portion of this request, please consider each bullet above to be a separate request for information.