How to file an effective access-to-information request at the City of Ottawa
Ontarians don’t have a FOIA. Our tool is MFIPPA, the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. It gives you a legal right to records the City holds. It works best when you use it with a plan.
Step 1: Check whether you need a request at all
Many City records can be released without a formal request, and department staff can tell you whether what you want can be provided informally. Ask first. It is faster and free, and if staff say no, you will file with a clearer picture of what exists.
The City also publishes a lot already, including budget documents and open data. Check those before you spend time on a request.
Step 2: Write a narrow, specific request
Vague requests produce fee estimates and delays. A good request:
- names the exact type of record (spreadsheet, report, email, briefing note)
- sets a date range or fiscal year
- names the department or program
- asks for records that already exist, not answers or analysis
That last point matters for the sample request below.
Step 3: Know the fees and where to send it
- Application fee
- $5, mandatory. Processing does not begin until it is paid.
- Search time
- $7.50 for each 15 minutes, on general requests.
- Fee estimate
- You get one if anticipated fees are $25 or more.
- Submit
- The City’s online MFIPPA access form. Credit cards are not accepted for mailed requests.
- Office
- Access to Information and Privacy Office, 110 Laurier Avenue West, Ottawa, ON K1P 1J1. Email: mfippa@ottawa.ca. Phone: 613-580-2424 ext. 21898.
Step 4: Follow up, and appeal if you need to
The standard response time is 30 days, although extensions are possible. If staff call to clarify your request, answer quickly. It usually speeds things up.
If you are refused, or unhappy with the decision, you can appeal to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. The appeal fee is $25 for general requests. You will need your original request, the file number and the City’s decision letter. Appeals have their own deadline, so check your decision letter.
The sample: 2027 infrastructure projects, ranked by cost, by ward
Here is a request worth making: every infrastructure project planned for 2027, sorted by cost and grouped by ward.
A caution on wording. MFIPPA gives you access to records that already exist. If you ask the City to produce a ranked, ward-by-ward list that doesn’t exist yet, staff may say that is a new record. The Act can still reach records that can be produced from existing electronic data with normal software, but this is a common point of friction.
The safest approach is to request the underlying data in its native format and do the sorting yourself. In a spreadsheet, that takes about two minutes.
Also check what is already public. The City publishes multi-year capital forecasts with its annual budget, and the 2027 numbers may already be there. Those documents may not break projects out by ward. That gap is where a formal request earns its keep.
Sample request text
To: Access to Information and Privacy Office, City of Ottawa, 110 Laurier Avenue West, Ottawa, ON K1P 1J1 (mfippa@ottawa.ca)
Re: Request for general records under MFIPPA, 2027 capital infrastructure projects
I request access to the following records:
- The current capital project listing or register (in native spreadsheet or database export format, such as Excel or CSV) for all infrastructure projects with planned spending in fiscal year 2027, including for each project:
- project name and project or file number
- responsible department
- ward or wards affected (including the field showing a “city-wide” or multi-ward designation, where used)
- total estimated project cost
- planned 2027 expenditure
- funding source (tax, rate, development charges, reserves, debt, other levels of government)
- project status
- The most recent version of the 2027 capital budget forecast and any supporting schedules from the Draft Budget 2027 or the multi-year forecast in the 2026 budget, whichever is current.
Time period: Records current as of the date of this request.
Format: Electronic copies, with spreadsheets in native format (not PDF) to allow analysis. If the data is held in a system that can export by ward, please provide that export.
Fees: Please provide a fee estimate before incurring costs above $25. If fees are anticipated, I ask that the City consider a fee waiver on the basis that disclosure benefits the public, since the information concerns the planned use of public funds.
I enclose the $5 application fee.
[Name, contact details, date]
Why this wording works
- It asks for existing system records, not a custom report. That sidesteps the objection that you are asking staff to create a record.
- It specifies native-format spreadsheets. PDFs make sorting hard. Excel or CSV lets you rank by cost and group by ward yourself.
- It asks for the ward field as the City holds it. Many projects, such as transit, water mains and city-wide programs, span several wards or none in particular. Asking for the City’s own designation avoids disputes about attribution.
- It sets a fee ceiling and asks for a waiver. Fees are a common reason requests stall.
What to do with the data
When the spreadsheet arrives, sort by planned 2027 spending, highest first, and pivot by ward. Then ask:
- Is spending spread evenly, or concentrated in particular wards?
- How much of each ward’s total is city-wide spending allocated to it?
- Which large projects have shifted since the last forecast?
That last comparison is where the accountability stories usually come from.
What is publicly available (as of early November 2026)
The best current sources for 2027 planned spending are the multi-year forecasts in the 2026 capital budget documents (Draft tabled ~November 2025; Adopted versions available). These are primarily PDFs.
Key documents include:
Four Year Forecast Summaries (2026–2029) in the committee budget books. These list individual projects by number and description with annual planned expenditures (in $000s) for 2026, 2027, 2028, and 2029, grouped by department/committee (e.g., Public Works and Infrastructure, Environment and Climate Change – Rate, Transit, etc.).
Some project sheets or summaries include ward information (specific ward numbers, “CW” for city-wide, or multiple wards).
Capital Funding Summaries show funding sources at the program or project level: tax-supported/dedicated, rate-supported, development charges, gas tax, and various debt categories (tax, rate, DC).
Works-in-Progress reports provide authority, expenditures to date, contractual obligations, and unspent balances (useful as a proxy for status).
Where to find them:
City of Ottawa Draft Budget 2026 Books page: ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/budget-finance-and-corporate-planning/draft-budget-2026/draft-budget-2026-books (links to committee books).
eScribe meeting documents (search for 2026 Draft Capital Budget / Four Year Forecast Summary). Examples from search results include documents with IDs such as 292375, 272330, 274818, etc. on pub-ottawa.escribemeetings.com.
Adopted 2026 Budget Book (condensed versions available on ottawa.ca).
Open Data / Budget Explorer:
Datasets powering the interactive Budget Explorer are available via Open Ottawa (open.ottawa.ca). These are higher-level (capital program by committee, by funding source, by service category) in CSV form — not the full project-level register with all the fields you requested.
Construction/infrastructure project maps and some related open datasets exist, but they are not the complete capital budget register with multi-year financials and funding details.
From the 2026 Draft Capital Budget Four Year Forecast, the overall 2027 capital forecast total is approximately $1.472 billion (in thousands: 1,471,963), with significant components in Public Works/Infrastructure ($689M), Environment & Climate Change – Rate ($344M), and Transit-related spending.
Limitations relative to your request
No single native Excel/CSV export of the complete current register with every field you listed (especially consistent full funding-source detail per project + status + ward + total estimated cost vs. annual planned spend).
Data is split across committee books and mostly in PDF.
Status is more fully covered in Works-in-Progress reports than in the forward forecast tables.
As of 3 November 2026, the detailed source for 2027 is still the multi-year forecast embedded in the 2026 budget (Draft Budget 2027 documents would normally appear around the annual tabling window).
How to get closer to what you asked for
Download and extract from the public PDFs — the Four Year Forecast Summaries + Funding Summaries in the Public Works & Infrastructure, Environment Rate, Transit, and other relevant committee books get you most of the project-level 2027 planned spending, project numbers, descriptions, and funding sources. Ward info is present for many (but not all) projects.
Open Data portal — for summary CSVs and any related construction datasets.
Formal request under MFIPPA (Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act) — this is the standard route for a native export of the internal capital project register/system with the full fields and current status. Contact the Access to Information and Privacy Office: mfippa@ottawa.ca or 613-580-2424 ext. 21898. The City’s Routine Disclosure plans note that budget books are proactively published; internal system exports generally require a request.
