Ontario's FOI overhaul keeps Ford's calendar secret

Ontario's new freedom of information rules are taking effect, and they're already blocking the release of documents that were once public — including Premier Doug Ford's calendar.

The Ford government exempted the premier, his cabinet, and their staff from FOI laws in March and passed the bill a month later. The law applied retroactively, killing requests already in the system. In recent weeks, requests for hospital deficits, flu briefings, Billy Bishop airport records, and Ford's calendar have all been rejected because of the changes.

"I don't know if there's a reason to restrict that information," said Zac Spicer, a York University public policy professor. "How I spend my day is something that is auditable by my employer, and the same goes for the Premier of Ontario, cabinet ministers and public servants writ large."

Ford has defended the changes as bringing Ontario in line with the federal government. "We're duplicating what the federal government is doing," he said last month. "We were an outlier. I should have done this eight years ago."

But Ontario's privacy commissioner has objected to the changes and disputes the claim they align with other jurisdictions. McMaster University political science professor Peter Graefe said knowing who the premier meets with is crucial for assessing whether due process was followed or certain interests received preferential treatment.

Spicer noted that while the FOI system can be cumbersome to administer, it offers an important window into how taxpayer-funded government operates. "When you purposely restrict access to things, you get the public asking why, and is this government hiding something?" he said. "What you lose is public trust."