Flu briefings given to Ontario health minister hidden in transparency clampdown

Briefings on flu, RSV and COVID-19 rates prepared for Ontario’s minister of health during the fall cannot be released publicly, the government has decided, under restrictive new transparency rules.

Sweeping changes to Ontario’s freedom of information laws were brought in as part of the Ford government’s budget this year, excluding all records from ministers, the premier and their staff from public scrutiny.

Since the law officially came into force on April 24, civil servants have issued a deluge of rejections for outstanding requests which fall foul of the retroactive rules.

The changes, Premier Doug Ford has acknowledged, are at least partly related to an attempt from Global News to access government calls he makes on his personal cellphone.

The latest rejection the government has issued under its new rules is to knock back a freedom of information request for “any briefing notes/decision notes/information notes/slide decks prepared for the minister on RSV, flu or COVID-19 rates.”

James Turk, the director for the Centre of Free Expression at the Toronto Metropolitan University, said the rejection was a “perfect example of what’s wrong with what the government brought in” when it made changes to freedom of information laws.

“It put up a wall around any document that’s in the possession of the minister, of the premier, any of their parliamentary secretaries, any political staff,” he said.

“Asking for information about COVID rates and RSV rates and so forth is information that, without question, should be accessible to the public. But because of the way the law has been written, if it’s in (the minister’s) possession, it’s not covered by the law.”

A spokesperson for Minister of Health Sylvia Jones sent a link to a webpage and said it shared “up-to-date information on respiratory virus activity in Ontario, including COVID-19, influenza, and RSV.”

The dashboard linked in the statement, however, is not a briefing document prepared for the minister. Those documents generally include additional information, advice, broader trends and how it could have further impacts on things like hospital capacity.

The rejection is part of a flurry of similar letters.

Officials with Ontario’s cabinet office recently declared that Google Docs used by staff in the premier’s office were no longer covered by freedom of information laws, while the Ministry of Health delayed and then rejected a request about hospital funding from The Canadian Press.

A long-standing request and appeal over the Greenbelt won by The Trillium, a Queen’s Park news outlet, was also delayed and then thrown out under the new rules.

“This would be unbelievable if it wasn’t so on brand,” Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said of the Google Docs rejection letter.

“This government is notorious for using personal Gmails and private cellphone records and conducting government business on all of those devices for their shady deals. And now they’ve gone and changed the law to make sure their records never get out.”

The rejection comes as critics accuse the government of a growing trend of secrecy, declining to share information — like how much it is spending on public commercials — and tightening freedom of information laws.

The government has said its freedom of information changes are necessary modernizations to outdated legislation, which, it claims, will bring it in line with other jurisdictions.

Ontario’s transparency watchdog has said the latter claim is untrue.

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