The Ford government has completed a last-minute dash to pass its controversial changes to freedom-of-information laws in Ontario, overruling and reversing a court ruling that demanded the premier begin work to release some of his phone records.
The changes were tucked into Ontario’s 2026 budget, which was tabled at the end of March, passed two rounds of debate and then lay dormant for weeks.
The overhaul will exclude the premier, his cabinet and all of their staff from disclosing emails, texts, phone records or any other documents they’ve created in their government work.
It’s a move Ontario’s information and privacy commission urged the government to abandon, saying it would make Ontario less secure and less transparent than any other jurisdiction in the country.
The Ford government, however, didn’t heed the calls, arguing it was updating an outdated law and aligning with other parts of the country.
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Instead of slowing down, the province chose to speed up its push to pass the controversial law.
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Rather than sending it to committee for debate and scrutiny from the public, the Progressive Conservatives decided this week to skip that normal process altogether.
Then, they scheduled a late-night debate, allowing MPPs to pass the law before they head off for a weeklong break.
After question period on Thursday, the government passed the bill, sending it to receive royal assent and applying retroactive changes to 40 years of freedom-of-information requests.
Once it receives royal assent, it will become law. The government indicated it is still waiting for the lieutenant governor to decide a date for that to happen.
Stephen Crawford, Minister of Public Business and Service Delivery, stopped to very briefly answer questions from reporters as he left following the vote.
He said he’d read a Global News story covering how almost every word about the return to the office mandate by Ontario’s secretary of the cabinet had been redacted — despite the government insisting requests to the civil service would shed light on how decisions are made.
“You’re suggesting we’re making a lot of changes. What are the changes then? There’s not a lot of changes,” he insisted.
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The overhaul will essentially exempt all records from the political side of government.
It will be retroactive, ending dozens of ongoing freedom-of-information requests for documents from the Ford government, rendering three ongoing court decisions moot and killing multiple appeals.
Among the court decisions that will now be reversed is a recent ruling that directed Premier Doug Ford to work to release his call logs from November 2022, the month his government announced its plan to remove land from the Greenbelt.
During question period, the opposition pushed Ford on the link between the legislation and his personal cellphone.
“You’re changing the laws retroactively, so there must be something really, really, really bad on your cell phone,” Ontario Liberal Leader John Fraser said to Ford during question period. “What is it?”
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said the budget legislation was “all about covering up the premier and the deals that he has been making on his device.”
Crawford claimed to reporters on Thursday afternoon that Ontario is “the gold standard” for transparency.
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