Teaching and Research Records

In February 2025 the Clinic was retained by the Canadian Association of Law Teachers (CALT - see https://www.acpd-calt.org/home) to advise CALT on making an application to the Alberta Court of Appeal seeking permission to participate as an intervenor in the appeal of Governors of the University of Calgary v Alberta Information and Privacy Commissioner, 2024 ABKB 522 (CanLII) regarding the application of access to information legislation to teaching and research records.

The subject matter of the litigation concerns the application of Alberta's access to information legislation (formerly the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and now the Access to Information Act, SA 2024, c A-1.4) to teaching and research materials created by faculty members at a post-secondary institution. The initial decision by the OIPC adjudicator applied a narrow understanding of the exclusion of teaching and research materials from legislated disclosure requirements (see University of Calgary (Re), 2022 CanLII 76344 (AB OIPC). The University of Calgary successfully sought judicial review of this OIPC decision, but in granting the University’s application the chambers justice commented that 'activism' and community engagement is not legal research.

CALT joined a coalition with two other entities (UofC Faculty Assocation and Canadian Association of University Teachers) to make the intervener application. In Governors of the University of Calgary v Alberta (Information and Privacy Commissioner), 2025 ABCA 253 (CanLII), Madam Justice Ho granted the coalition permission to intervene in the appeal. In October 2025 the Court of Appeal issued its decision in Governors of the University of Calgary v Alberta (Information and Privacy Commissioner), 2025 ABCA 350 (CanLII), clarifying that activism and community engagement constitutes legal research: “We agree that academic freedom exists to protect all scholarship, including that which may be unpopular or politically targeted.” (at para 41).