Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner Patricia Kosseim says the Ford government’s proposed overhaul of freedom-of-information law will make the province more secretive and less secure.
The province plans to retroactively exclude all records created by the premier, cabinet ministers, parliamentary assistants, and their staff - including calls, texts, and emails - from both transparency and privacy requirements.
That means neither civil servants nor Kosseim’s office would have jurisdiction over how those records are stored, secured, or disclosed.
Ford officials claim the update aligns Ontario with other Canadian jurisdictions and counters foreign threats - including from China. But Kosseim disputes that, stressing exclusion undermines legal safeguards: personal devices holding sensitive data won’t be subject to mandated security protocols or retention rules, especially when officials leave office.
“This proposal would put Ontario offside,” she said. “It would place Ontario in the minority of provinces taking such an extreme approach.”