Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaks with reporters before a First Ministers Meeting in Ottawa, on Jan. 29.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
When public anger prompted Ontario Premier Doug Ford to revoke his plan to allow developers to build on protected land called the Greenbelt, he said he’d made a mistake and apologized. That was in 2023.
It would appear that Mr. Ford was sorry mostly about being forced to reverse course. He is proposing a change to government transparency laws that would make it harder to uncover the sort of behaviour that raised red flags three years ago.
The Ford government has sought to justify this move with a series of explanations, all of them unsatisfactory and transparently self-serving.
Particularly galling is the claim that the change is needed to prevent the Chinese Communist Party from using access to information laws to infiltrate Canada. If you don’t like that reason, the government has others. It’s also about adjusting the law to fit current technology, and protecting the public, and harmonizing with other jurisdictions.
The more obvious conclusion is that Mr. Ford is unhappy with what the public has been able to learn about the workings of his government. These revelations have been a key check on this and other governments, allowing the people to become aware of what is happening and then register their displeasure.
Doug Ford says his cellphone records must remain hidden to protect privacy
Gallingly, governments like to present changes to access laws in high-minded terms. They are about the dignity of individuals, good decision making or saving money, Canadians are told. To be clear, these are not the point. The point is to prevent the public finding out information that could make people angry at the government.
In Nova Scotia, the government is proposing to broaden a law protecting the identity of young people involved in the province’s child protection system. The new law would prevent them being identified after death as well. Even parents would not be able to waive their own child’s anonymity and would be constrained in how they could call attention to flaws in how their government handled their child’s case.
The power to reveal the name would rest solely with the government. So the very people who might have motivation to keep quiet about the failings of government would control how much information could be released after a child’s death. This is grotesque.
In Ottawa, Library and Archives Canada is proposing to slash funding for its access to information department, responding to the call for government-wide economies. While that’s a necessary goal, the scale of the savings are a negligible part of the tens of billions in reduced spending being sought by Ottawa. But the downside would be substantial.
The department acknowledges that the cuts “may impact the ability to fully comply with legislated requirements under the Access to Information and Privacy Acts.”
Opinion: Ontario steps back into the information dark ages
That phrasing is important. Access to information laws are not suggestions. They are requirements. However, Mr. Ford is proposing to get around them by changing the law.
Under the proposed bill in Ontario, the premier and cabinet ministers would be exempt from freedom of information requests. And it would exempt those who work in the offices of these politicians, further hiding how policy is made. This would apply retroactively, meaning that all the requests now in the system would be thrown out. Why?
Not so coincidentally, retroactive application would render moot a court battle over Mr. Ford’s phone logs. A court ruled in December that the premier cannot duck transparency legislation by using a personal phone to conduct government business.
The Ford government has said the changes would bring Ontario in line with most other provinces. But why reduce access to match other jurisdictions rather than be an example of transparency that others could emulate?
On Monday, Mr. Ford made the telling assertion that access laws need to be tightened because of new technology that did not exist at the time they were written. That speaks volumes. For him, limiting access rather than increasing openness should be the default assumption.
Mr. Ford’s proposed change of law would be bad for democracy. Access laws are often used by the media or opposition parties to winkle out information. But these laws are not for their benefit. They are for the public, a way to hold government – their government – to account.