The matters

Canada has no nuclear weapons, and its defence against a nuclear attack rests on the assurances of allies. Three requests under the Access to Information Act asked National Defence for the instrument in which any obligation to defend Canada is written down. On 17 September 2026 it answered that it will not say whether one record exists. Written testimony has been before the Senate Standing Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs since 29 August and was placed before its members on 22 September. The committee of the Australian Parliament that covers defence answered in seven hours that it holds no such record. A request under the American Freedom of Information Act to NORAD and USNORTHCOM received case number 26-R-057; its fee waiver was refused in three words and is under appeal as 26-AC-0132-A1. The Information Commissioner registered the complaints against National Defence as files 5826-04346, 5826-04347 and 5826-04348, and the complaint against the Privy Council Office as 5826-04322. Global Affairs Canada and the Privy Council Office let the thirty days pass on the same question; both refusals are before the Commissioner. The same question is now registered abroad: FOI2026/21329 at the Ministry of Defence and FOI2026/19074 at the Cabinet Office of the United Kingdom, LEX 14213 at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and FOI 571/26/27 at the Department of Defence of Australia.

The finding · The draft Act · The answers, quoted

Since 7 January 2025 the United States has said it wants Canada as its fifty-first state. The King of Canada is also King of the United Kingdom, of Australia and of New Zealand. On 29 and 30 September 2026 the same questions went in writing to the governments of all four: whether any other realm of the King holds an instrument that obliges it to defend Canada, what each has said in public in support of the independence of Canada, and what passed between the King and his governments on the American statements. Requests went under the Access to Information Act to Global Affairs Canada, the Privy Council Office, Canadian Heritage, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and the Department of Justice, the last two on the wording of the oath of citizenship since 8 September 2022; under the Official Information Act to two departments of New Zealand; and to the Cabinet Office of the United Kingdom and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia. The Commonwealth Secretariat was asked for every statement of solidarity with Canada since 7 January 2025, and the Office of the Secretary to the Governor General for its correspondence with the King and the Royal Household on the American statements. A brief and a request for a study went to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, with letters to its ten members, to the member who moved on 25 October 2022 that the House sever ties between the Canadian State and the British monarchy, and to the eighteen sitting members who voted for it. The Cabinet Office registered its request as FOI2026/19272 on 30 September. On 1 October the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet of New Zealand asked whether the requester is eligible under section 12 of its Act.

The case against the Crown · The clock

Three federal statutes pay the pensions of the RCMP, the public service and the Canadian Forces. Only the RCMP statute lets a board withhold the employer-funded share of a pension from a member dismissed for misconduct. The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat confirmed the gap in writing on 23 September 2026.

The finding

On 6 May 2026 a member of the RCMP White Butte Detachment drove a police vehicle at Danilo Dzyuban while he was praying in a business parking lot. Ten days later she told the Canada Border Services Agency it was “perhaps mental health issues”. The Agency’s note was released under the Privacy Act on 24 September 2026. Complaints were filed the same day with the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission and the Canadian Human Rights Commission, with a preservation demand to the detachment. The Commission registered the complaint as R2026-008858. Complaints to the Privacy Commissioner followed against the RCMP on 25 September and against the Agency on 28 September. On 9 October 2026 an action against His Majesty the King for the conduct of the RCMP was filed at the counter of the Federal Court in Ottawa: sections 2(a), 7, 8, 9 and 15 of the Charter, with a motion under Rule 55. It is before a judge for direction.

The entry and what has been filed

Section 17 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 allows any resident of Canada to apply to the Minister for an investigation, and section 18 requires the Minister to acknowledge receipt within twenty days. An application concerning gene-edited organisms was filed on 2 September 2026. The twenty days ran out without an acknowledgement. The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development registered the petition as file no. 0550 and forwarded it on 24 September 2026 to the ministers responsible. The Ministers of Health, of Agriculture and Agri-Food and of the Environment acknowledged it in writing on 5 October 2026. On 6 October Health Canada asked what questions 17 and 18 mean; the answer went the next morning. The answers to all eighteen questions are due by 22 January 2027.

The finding

Section 233 of the Criminal Code defines an offence that only a woman can commit, punishable by five years at most. The same act by the father is murder, punishable by imprisonment for life. The distinction is printed in the statute, in words. The draft Act amends the Criminal Code and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to remove it.

The draft Act

A federal body that breaks an obligation it published itself carries no price at all. The Public Accountability Bounty Act puts one on it, paid by that body, and is before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates as a brief to the Comprehensive Expenditure Review. The Statutory Duty Compliance Act gives every statutory duty a date by which it must be performed.

The Bounty Act · The Compliance Act · The registry

Thirty-three requests under the Access to Information Act stand on the clock across seventeen federal institutions, twelve under the Privacy Act, and twelve more abroad. Complaints to the Information Commissioner are open against National Defence, the Privy Council Office, Global Affairs Canada, the Treasury Board Secretariat, the Department of Justice, Health Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Every request refused by silence is before the Commissioner. On 8 October 2026 an application for judicial review of two decisions of the Commissioner of 17 September, files 5826-03148 and 5826-03149, was filed in the Federal Court. On 7 October Public Safety Canada lifted a “hold” that the Act does not contain.

The requests register · The reversals

Social assistance was refused, the stated reason changed more than once, and no officer has ever named the provision of the regulation being applied. The first finding comes out of that file: a debt owed to the state enforces itself automatically, while an order directing payment to the person enforces by nothing.

On 22 September 2026 the Divisional Court issued an application for judicial review against the Administrator of Ontario Works for the City of Ottawa and the City, file DC-26-00003254-0000, with the court fees waived. It was served on the Attorney General of Ontario on 24 September. The file was put on hold on 23 September; after a written request for internal review at 2:07 on 29 September, the caseworker wrote at 9:38 the same morning: “I have unsuspended your file.” Notice of a claim against the Crown under section 18 of the Crown Liability and Proceedings Act, 2019 was served the same day. The City has appeared; the application record and factum are due on 22 October 2026.

Before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services and the City of Ottawa answer to file 2026-68461-I; notice of the application went to both on 17 September, and their responses are due by 22 October. Before the Social Benefits Tribunal, appeal 2608-06747 won an interim assistance order on 21 August and is set for hearing on 18 March 2027. A second appeal, filed on 28 August, still has no file number; the Tribunal’s own time ran out on 21 September.

The finding

The Foundation paid $194,700 of provincial money to make a refugee employment programme accessible. Asked what the grant agreement requires, it answered on 24 September 2026 that accessibility is outside its oversight role. The questions went to the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Gaming and a complaint about the Foundation to the Ombudsman of Ontario on 22 September.

The finding

Ontario’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act treats every time limit as a potential barrier to access, and the fee that locks the same right as no barrier at all. The amendment copies the Legislature’s own words across to the fee.

The draft amendment

The City of Ottawa’s flag protocol directs that the City will not fly the flag of a group whose undertakings or philosophy are “politically or religiously motivated”. Under the heading Legislative and Administrative Authorities, the protocol’s own entry reads: None. An officer approved it in 2006 and the Clerk revised it twice; no by-law and no recorded vote of Council appears in the record. Written demands are with the City Clerk, the Ontario Human Rights Commission and the police services board. Asked about the delegated authority, the Auditor General answered on 29 September 2026 that the matter “does not fall within the OAG’s mandate”.

What the City answered

On 2 September 2026 every certified candidate whose address the City publishes received the same six questions on identical terms.

The candidate register

A prepaid line was charged for a cycle that the provider states ran with another carrier, and the only notice it relies on was sent by text message to a telephone number that could not receive text messages. Asked what its records show, the provider gave three different accounts of the same evening and has not produced the delivery records. The complaint is before the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecom-television Services.

The three accounts, quoted

On 30 and 31 July 2026 applications went to the Consulate General of Ukraine in Toronto and to the Consular Section of the Embassy of Ukraine in Canada for a passport for travel abroad, and on 14 August for a duplicate birth certificate. The thirty days that article 20 of the Law of Ukraine on Citizens’ Appeals allows ran out on each, with no passport and no decision. On 25 September 2026 the Consular Section answered in writing that “for men aged 18 to 60, all consular services, including the reclaiming of duplicate certificates, are provided only on presentation of a valid e-VOD from Reserv+”, the electronic military registration document. The same letter requires the passport for travel abroad as a condition of the birth certificate: the document is demanded as the condition of issuing it. Article 24 of the Constitution of Ukraine guarantees equality regardless of sex, article 25 guarantees care and protection to citizens abroad, and article 64 forbids restricting either even under martial law. The complaint went to the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights on 26 September; the complaint and its supplement were registered on 30 September. The answer is due by 30 October 2026.