General Policy

Documents that are not necessary for legal and/or business purposes should be destroyed in order to reduce the high cost of storing, indexing and handling the vast amount of electronic and hardcopy documents which would otherwise accumulate. Documents provided with a specific retention period, as set out in the Organization’s standard record retention schedule (which follows), should be destroyed at the conclusion of the retention period.

Section 1: Suspension of Policy in Connection with Litigation and Discovery

Documents and records that are beyond the policy retention period or that are without a normal archive requirement must, nonetheless, be retained under certain circumstances, including, but not limited to: (a) where the information has been subpoenaed in a civil or criminal case, or is the subject of an information request letter from a government agency, (b) where the information relates to civil or criminal litigation against the Organization that is either pending, imminent or contemplated, or (c) where destruction of the information would impede, obstruct or influence the administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of the federal government, where such matter is pending, imminent or contemplated.

It is the policy of the Organization to suspend all regularly scheduled document destruction when litigation against the Organization is pending, imminent or contemplated. When document destruction is suspended for any reason, the Audit Committee will notify the appropriate personnel about the relevant categories of documents to be retained until further notice. Once the relevant documents have been identified and segregated from destruction/deletion, the operation of the policy regarding remaining Organization documents, including regularly scheduled destruction, shall recommence.

Section 2: Email Storage Policy

To properly manage the record retention policy as applied to electronic communications (e-mail), Organization staff should manage their e-mail communications by establishing general, server folders into which specific e-mails should be filed.

Folders are appropriate based on individual circumstances. Like other forms of records and documents, e-mail records should be retained and destroyed based on the Organization’s standard record retention schedule. Except when the suspension provisions apply, general email communications that do not fall within a listed category on the record retention schedule will be destroyed after 1 year except where information technology limits deletion, such as MS7 email which is retained indefinitely.

Section 3: Records Retention Schedule