Ontario’s transparency watchdog says the Ford government’s planned overhaul of freedom of information laws is a “shocking” proposal designed to hide the premier’s cellphone records from the public.
New policy announced by the government on Friday morning will retroactively block the release of communications from the premier, government ministers, parliamentary assistants or their staff through access to information requests.
It’s a policy change the Information and Privacy Commission (IPC) suspects is designed to bail the government out of releasing vital documents following a legal defeat.
Since late 2022, Global News has been engaged in a battle with the government over Doug Ford’s personal call log, trying to access information on a device he uses to run the province.
Through the process, the government has admitted Ford uses his personal phone for government business, but argued it would be an invasion of his privacy to release it. Twice, that argument has been knocked back.
Toward the end of 2024, an adjudicator with the IPC sided with Global News and ordered Ford to hand over his records. The next year, a panel of three judges rejected the government’s request for a judicial review.
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Commissioner Patricia Kosseim said in a statement that it was “alarming” the government was rewriting the law after losing in court.
“The Government of Ontario is currently seeking leave to appeal a court ruling that unanimously upheld my office’s order to produce call logs from the Premier’s personal cellphone that relate to government business,” she said.
“By changing the law retroactively, the government’s message is plain: if oversight bodies get in the way, just change the rules.”
Under Ontario’s current framework, the public is entitled to request documents and communications from civil servants and politicians, with some elements redacted to protect independent decision making, advice to politicians and legal advice, among a myriad of other exemptions.
Once enacted, the new law will mean that records of the premier, cabinet ministers, parliamentary assistants and their offices would no longer be subject to freedom of information laws. Members of the public could still request records held by public servants in government ministries.
That would likely exclude Ford’s cellphone records from release permanently — including who the premier spoke to before deciding to remove land from the Greenbelt in 2022.
The commissioner said the new changes could destroy transparency.
“If records about government business can be shielded from scrutiny simply because they sit in a minister’s office, on a staffer’s device, or within a political account, public accountability is eviscerated,” she wrote.
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