The Ford government has passed a spring budget that includes provisions to let the premier and his cabinet ministers keep all their office records secret.
The spring budget changes Freedom of Information laws retroactively as well, meaning Premier Doug Ford would no longer have to comply with a court order to release his cellphone records.
The government used its majority to fast-track the bill and skip public hearings.
The FOI changes were first announced back in March and followed the loss of a court battle over access to Ford’s phone records.
The premier regularly gives out his personal cellphone number to the public and uses the device to conduct government business.
A court ruled in January that Ford must release logs of government-related calls made on his cellphone to comply with a Freedom of Information Request filed by Global News and supported by the Information and Privacy Commissioner.
Ford refused to release the records, citing confidentiality with constituents, even though FOI requests are already redacted to hide personal information.
The government called a late-night session at Queen’s Park Thursday, paving the way for them to give the legislation a final vote Thursday, the last day the legislature is in session before breaking to spend a week with constituents.
Law will make to harder to know what the government is doing
Opposition parties at Queen’s Park have expressed outrage over the legislation, pointing out that the public only learned about problems – like the Greenbelt scandal, the government accidentally releasing dozens of prisoners and other missteps – through FOI laws.
“People have a right to know. They have a right to know, first and foremost, how their tax dollars are being spent and why government is making the decisions that they’re making,” NDP Leader Marit Stiles said. “This government has decided to change that in the province of Ontario.”
Interim Liberal Leader John Fraser pointed out that the legislation will also apply to FOI requests that were submitted long before the new law comes into effect.
“By lunchtime today, it will be law and it will be retroactive. I know you know what that means, premier – retroactive laws, retroactively,” Fraser said to Ford in Question Period Thursday. “So there must be something really, really, really bad on your cell phone.”
Ford defended the move, insisting it’s about keeping constituent matters private rather than keeping the public from learning who he’s talking to when it comes to government business.
“No premier in the history of this country has given his cell number out to actually help people to talk to them about confidential information,” Ford said during Question Period. “And I’m sure if I told these people, ‘I’m going to post everything that you gave me,’ I’d have more lawsuits than you could shake a stick at because it’s confidential.”
But Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said Ford is just trying to shield his actions from public view.
“Ontario’s going to have the most restrictive FOI laws in the country because the premier knows that he has a government that’s plagued by scandals, RCMP investigations and accusations of corruption, and he wants to hide that from the people of Ontario,” Schreiner told reporters.
The $244.2 billion-budget was tabled at the end of March and includes a number of other measures as well. It merges the province’s conservation authorities, caps ticket resale prices, extends the One Fare program and gives a tax cut to small businesses.
