Ford's Calendar Now Secret Under New Ontario FOI Law

Premier Doug Ford's daily calendar will no longer be accessible to the public under retroactive changes to Ontario's freedom of information law that took effect in late April.

The changes to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act exclude records held by ministers and their offices from public access. Unlike his predecessors, Ford has not voluntarily shared his public itinerary since taking office in 2018, so CBC News has routinely filed freedom of information requests to obtain those records.

James Turk, director of the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University, says the changes are troubling because Ford's calendar was already protected from revealing cabinet confidences under existing provisions. "It's a fundamental assault on democracy," Turk said. "He's the premier of our province, we have a right to know what he does and who he meets with."

Alasdair Roberts, a professor of public policy at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who has studied freedom of information laws for 30 years, called the changes "offensive to the principle of transparency." He noted that "a well-structured freedom of information law should acknowledge that sometimes the government has a right to withhold information, but also guarantee that there's some independent body making sure that the balance is being struck appropriately."

The provincial government cited a reason for the change: Ontario was one of the only jurisdictions in Canada without "explicit protections" for records belonging to cabinet ministers. The government said the amendments bring Ontario in line with nearly every other province and the federal government, which have had similar legislation in place for decades. When asked whether Ford's office would proactively share his calendar, the premier's office did not respond.