Facing the prospect of a general strike in 2022 over his government’s use of the notwithstanding clause to legislate education support staff back to work, Ontario Premier Doug Ford blinked.
At a hastily scheduled news conference, he said he would rescind the law, explaining he’d been “on the phone all night” returning calls about the move.
But call records obtained by Global News showed Ford’s work phone hadn’t been used. Months of call logs from the period, which also included the decision to remove protected land from the Greenbelt, were blank.
Through a lengthy freedom of information appeal process, government lawyers admitted Ford uses his personal phone to make and receive calls in his capacity as premier.
The Information and Privacy Commission (IPC), which oversees access to information appeals, ruled the premier was using his personal phone to bypass transparency and ordered him to disclose the records.
The government refused, seeking a judicial review. That case was heard in December, and a panel of three judges rejected it in less than three weeks.
The province said it intended to appeal, but a few weeks later, it unveiled sweeping retroactive changes to freedom of information laws that would effectively void the defeat.
The changes would exclude all calls, communications and other records belonging to cabinet ministers, the premier and their staff from public release and scrutiny.
In a blistering statement, the IPC accused Ford and his ministers of moving the goal posts after losing in court.
“By changing the law retroactively, the government’s message is plain: if oversight bodies get in the way, just change the rules,” the commissioner wrote in a statement.
Ford sidestepped a question about his cellphone on Monday, saying he wouldn’t release “confidential information about people’s lives.”
Existing freedom of information laws would not lead to the release of personal information, only calls the premier made or received from government staff, ministers or lobbyists and stakeholders.
“This isn’t anything new,” Ford said. “It’s not pulling a rabbit out of the hat; it’s just duplicating what other provinces had.”
Premier Ford has long put accessibility at the centre of his political brand, reading out his personal cellphone number at public and private events.
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At a recent televised news conference, he read out his number and asked anyone with issues to reach out. The premier’s personal number is used by voters, mayors and cabinet ministers to speak to the most senior politician in Ontario.
Last year, animal rights advocates got the premier on the phone to discuss the plight of whales at Marineland — precipitating a change in provincial policy to help push the federal government to export the mammals.
Ford has regularly asked people to be patient waiting for him to reply to them, complaining, “all I hear is the buzzing” during the night as people text him.
That accessibility is a key government communications point.
When Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement Stephen Crawford announced his plan to limit access to information laws, he pointed to Ford’s phone number as evidence of a transparent government.
“Our premier, as many of you know, has been probably the most accessible political leader in the history of this country, in fact, maybe even the world,” he told reporters.
“He interacts with people on a daily basis, and I certainly appreciate that. I get calls and texts from him at 11 p.m., where he would like me to contact an individual he was talking to.”
The retroactive changes — which exclude all records belonging to the premier and cabinet ministers from release — could kill the freedom of information appeal the government has twice lost.
Critics believe the change is designed to end that challenge and ensure the record of who the premier has spoken to remains permanently secret.
“We know that the premier doesn’t want to share his personal — what he considers his personal — cellphone records, even though he’s using personal devices to do government business,” NDP Leader Marit Stiles told reporters.
“The courts have decreed that he needs to release that information. And so rather than release that information, they are going to change the laws. What does that tell you about what this government is trying to hide and what’s at stake?”
Liberal MPP Stephanie Smyth said the changes were about reducing transparency.
“This isn’t about protecting Ontario. It’s about protecting Doug Ford,” she wrote in a statement.
“Ontarians are worried about hospital wait times, rising costs, and housing — but the Premier is only worried about protecting himself.”
At an unrelated event on Monday, Ford said he wanted people to judge his government on what it does, not how it makes decisions.
“Judge me, or judge our party, on decisions,” he said, “not on conversations that we have in a cabinet office or conversations that people trust that you are.”
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