Casual Legal: Do you know where your bylaws are stored?

By Jenna Chamberlain
Reynolds Mirth Richards Farmer LLP
Alberta Municipalities Casual Legal Service Provider 

Lawyers often nag their clients about the importance of effectively storing and maintaining records. For municipalities, ensuring the safety of documents is not just good practice – it is required by legislation.

Section 208(1)(b) of the Municipal Government Act (MGA) states the Chief Administrative Officer must ensure that all bylaws, minutes of council meetings and other records and documents of the municipality must be kept safe. The term “kept safe” is not specifically defined in the legislation and has not been interpreted by the courts. However, we can assume the intention of this section is to ensure that records are available and readable, in their original form.

Overall, there are two types of documents to consider: documents originally in physical form, and documents originally in electronic form.

For physical documents, safety measures can range from prevention of complete destruction to preventing stains or rips which affect readability. The Government of Alberta has provided some guidance in its publication “Basic Principles of Bylaws”. In this document, the government suggests storing documents in a fire-proof safe and backing up documents electronically. They also suggest municipalities should take care of the appearance and preservation of their documents, assuming documents could be kept for centuries.

For electronic documents, the focus is more on privacy and security. Documents should be protected from being accessed, damaged, edited, or taken by third parties. This can be achieved with passwords, anti-viral software, and specialized document protection software.  
The main takeaway is that municipal governments need to have defined procedures and practices in place for ensuring the safety of bylaws, minutes and documents, and they need to follow those procedures and practices. There is no particular method mandated or required, as long as the records remain available and readable if necessary.

To access Alberta Municipalities Casual Legal Helpline, Alberta Municipalities members can call toll-free to 1-800-661-7673 or send an casuallegal [at] abmunis.ca (email) to reach the municipal legal experts at Reynolds Mirth Richards and Farmer LLP. For more information on the Casual Legal Service, please send an riskcontrol [at] abmunis.ca (email) or call 310-MUNI (6864) to speak to Alberta Municipalities Risk Management staff. Any Regular or Associate member of Alberta Municipalities can access the Casual Legal Service.

DISCLAIMER: This article is meant to provide information only and is not intended to provide legal advice. You should seek the advice of legal counsel to address your specific set of circumstances. Although every effort has been made to provide current and accurate information, changes to the law may cause the information in this article to be outdated.