Making a Third-Party Request for Information under TARA

TRIBUNAL ADJUDICATIVE RECORDS ACT, 2019

The Tribunal Adjudicative Records Act, 2019 (“TARA”) came into force June 30, 2019. The Landlord and Tenant Board ("the Board") currently have no formal procedures for making a request for documents pursuant to TARA.

TARA provides that adjudicative records (as defined in the statute) are presumptively available to the public. Certain records are also expressly excluded by the statute [s. 1(3]). It also provides that parties and affected persons may apply for, and the Board itself may make, confidentiality orders in certain circumstances.

TARA applies to adjudicative records in all proceedings before the Social Justice Tribunals, including the Landlord and Tenant Board, that are commenced on or after May 29, 2019. The Board will continue to apply their existing Procedures on Access to Documents and Exhibits Contained in their Tribunal Adjudication Files to requests in respect of proceedings commenced before that date.

Upon receiving a request for documents pursuant to TARA where no confidentiality order has been issued, a tribunal must make the document available to the requester without notice to the parties to the proceeding or, in its discretion, the Board may advise the parties in the Board file of the request (including the identity of the requester) and may provide an opportunity for those parties to provide submissions.

While the Board retains the discretion to seek submissions on any request, the Board generally regards the following as adjudicative records within the meaning of TARA and will typically make the following documents available to the requester without notice to the parties

• application forms and attached schedules/ statement of facts;
• response and/or intervention forms and attached schedules/ statement of facts;
• documents which are required to be attached to an application (such as certificates of service);
• notices of hearing;
• written legal submissions; and
• documents which have been made an exhibit in a Board hearing.

The Board typically does not produce copies of decisions, as they are publicly available at www.canlii.org, a free legal information database.

The text of the Tribunal Adjudicative Records Act, 2019 is available here: https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/19t07.

The text of the Regulation provides that certain statutes prevail over TARA is available here: https://www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation/r19211.