UBC Properties Trust (UBCPT) remains exempt from releasing organizational information upon public request, one year after a report recommending it should be.
Released in June 2022, the report from the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Office titled FIPPA For the Future outlines 34 recommendations meant to “improve and modernize access to information and privacy rules in British Columbia’s public sector.”
Recommendation four suggests to “amend the definition of “public body” to ensure that any board, committee, commissioner, panel, agency or corporation created or owned by a public body is subject to the Act,” regardless of whether it was previously included — which would include UBCPT.
In BC, the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) requires all public bodies to release requested information to the public for specific purposes such as law enforcement or litigation. It gives individuals the right to access certain information that is held by the institution.
UBCPT is a corporate body that is 100 per cent created, owned and accountable to UBC. UBC is a fully public body subject to FIPPA laws. The company oversees real estate management on UBC’s campuses.
“In that report, there were a number of recommendations that the Special Committee made which included addressing this dynamic that comes up with public bodies that have corporate entities attached to them … a lack of transparency when public dollars are involved,” said Executive Director of the Freedom of Information and Privacy Association Jason Woywada.
Despite its ownership, UBC claims the Properties Trust is an independent, private company not subject to freedom of information (FOI) requests — creating longstanding concern among student and staff advocates. For public bodies, these requests can include anything from official documents to emails.
In a statement to The Ubyssey, the University Counsel Office wrote “one of the changes suggested was to bring public body subsidiaries under FIPPA. However, this wasn’t one of the recommendations that was passed into law. At this point, subsidiaries are still separate entities and not subject to FIPPA.”
The grassroots of the issue originated in 1988 when the responsibility of UBC’s 400 hectares of claimed public land, once managed by a real estate committee headed by the UBC Board of Governors, which is still covered by current FOI laws, was transferred to what is now known as UBC Properties Investments Ltd. which oversees UBCPT.
Since 1998, UBCPT has worked and been responsible for maximizing campus real estate assets. UBCPT grew UBC’s endowment from $100 million in the 1980's to nearly $2.8 billion today. The organization is behind a majority of the private residents found across campus, with its first being the development of Hampton Place in 1988. They have since developed Hawthorn Place, Chancellor Place and Wesbrook Place, which are all owned by UBC.
“Over the past 35 years … students and staff bitterly complained about [UBC Properties Trust’s] secrecy in regards to a new mini city popping up on site,” said journalist Stanley Tromp, who has devoted much of his career to advocating for information transparency in BC.
In 2006, Tromp filed a Freedom of Information request for meeting minutes and annual reports from UBCPT, but this was denied. He appealed to the B.C. Information Commissioner, and eventually the BC Supreme Court, but negotiations failed and the request was eventually overturned.
In the past, the AMS, The Ubyssey and the CUPE 116 union— who represent most service workers at UBC such as technicians or food service staff— have all requested to extend FOI laws to UBCPT, but efforts were ignored.
“When we look at UBC Properties Trust and its intersection with UBC as its parent organization, you need to consider what is the majority stakeholder of that organization of UBC Properties Trust,” said Woywada.
“If [UBC] is still the governing body that controls the majority of that organization's direction and a substantial portion of its resources stem from the subsidized activities from the taxpayer and from a public entity, then it should be subject to the act.”
All open-access information regarding the UBCPT’s operations can be found on their website, but this information is limited, and does not include a financial breakdown of its affiliated projects.
Tromp calls UBCPT a case of “pseudo-privatization.” According to Woywada, its structure is a method to combat public questioning.
“We're not trying to use freedom of information to conduct surveillance on government employees,” Woywada clarified. “What we are trying to do is understand the decisions that are being made [and] understand how the system is operating.”
Going forward, Tromp hopes to see more discourse between organizations like UBCPT and the public in the form of annual general meetings.
“All the people are in effect some kind of shareholder. And there has to be some better mechanism. Some accountability.”