Ontario court dismisses appeal to block release of Doug Ford’s phone records

The Ontario Appeal Court has dismissed the government’s attempt to cancel an order telling civil servants to access Doug Ford’s personal call logs, reactivating a requirement for the premier to hand over his records.

Earlier this year, a panel of three Ontario judges sided with Global News and upheld a ruling from the Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC) ordering Ford to disclose the government-related calls he makes from his personal device.

The decision came as part of a years-long transparency battle centring on a week of call logs on the premier’s personal phone from November 2022, when the government decided to allow development on protected lands in the Greenbelt

A divisional court ruling, as well as an order from the IPC, concluded Ford uses his personal device to make official calls and communicate government decisions.

Both ordered the premier to hand his records to civil servants so they could sort through them to determine which calls were in his official capacity as premier.

Days after the ruling came down in January, the government said it planned to appeal the decision.

But on May 19, the appeal court dismissed that request.

A spokesperson for the premier’s office said it was “reviewing the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision and determining next steps.”

The Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision has a series of knock-on effects.

After Global News won its appeal to the IPC at the end of 2024, the transparency watchdog penned an order that instructed Ford to give civil servants his call logs for them to work out what calls should be made public.

Lawyers representing both the government and the premier personally sought a judicial review of that order and asked the IPC to suspend its demand until a decision was reached, arguing that going ahead could harm the premier.

The IPC agreed and told civil servants to pause attempts to access the premier’s cellphone until the court challenge was resolved.

Now that the appeal has effectively been lost, the order to get phone records from the premier’s cellphone is active again.

The IPC wrote to the government on Friday, notifying civil servants they must begin work to comply with it again.

“On May 19, 2026, the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed the ministry and affected party’s request for leave to appeal,” an adjudicator for the IPC wrote.

“Accordingly, I now lift the stay on Order PO-4577-F and reinstate the… order provisions.”

Specifically, the letter told civil servants to “obtain from the affected party any government or departmental related entries from his personal cell phone’s call.”

It also set a 30-day deadline for them to seek the records from the premier, work out which calls must be released and make their decision public.

While the premier must again officially hand over his records, it remains highly unlikely he will actually be forced to do so.

The process will be significantly complicated by a retroactive overhaul of freedom of information rules that the Ford government passed in April.

As part of the 2026 budget, the Progressive Conservatives retroactively changed transparency laws in Ontario to give government staff and cabinet ministers near blanket immunity from freedom of information requests.

The changes exclude the premier, his cabinet, their parliamentary assistants and staff from access to information requests.

They also exclude them from transparency oversight and privacy protections put in place to protect personal data and sensitive government documents.

Because the law is retroactive, it is likely to nullify the court ruling by allowing civil servants to revise their initial decision and decide that the premier’s cellphone records are no longer covered by transparency laws.

It remains unclear when and how the government might do that.

All freedom of information staff in the Ontario government were told to pause their work for more than a week after the new law passed, while leaders belatedly developed guidelines on how to apply the new law.

If privacy and transparency officials with the government do issue a new decision exempting Ford’s personal phone from release, a spokesperson for the IPC pointed out it can be appealed.

“Cabinet Office is responsible for considering and applying the law as it currently stands, including any relevant amendments under Bill 97,” they wrote in a statement.

“Any access decision made by an institution may be appealed to the IPC in accordance with Ontario’s access and privacy laws.”

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