The recent ramming through of amendments to Ontario's provincial and local freedom of information legislation, as part of an omnibus budget bill 97, will hit home right away, including in Ottawa. The exclusion of provincial records on matters from the Greenbelt exploitation to the premier's cell phone records is very controversial.
But I would argue that the changes enacted are equally, if not more devastating, at the local level for users looking for records from city halls, police departments, schools or hospitals. That is because both the municipal and provincial acts want to force users into access plans that can require requests to undergo wording changes that agencies prefer. If users disagree with those changes, the government can then unilaterally declare those requests as abandoned.
The amendments also mean more potential delay tactics, as bodies can dally around with FOI applications for up to 60 days, instead of the previous 30-day time limit. Even then, they can come back asking for more time to process the requests. So, for instance, most, if not all, of my many FOI requests to the City of Ottawa on the initial LRT problems, which were featured in multiple stories in the Citizen, could now be subject to replies that effectively say we do not like what you asked so we consider your request abandoned.
There is a certain irony to this, as it was Ontario Premier Doug Ford who called a rare public inquiry into the failings of Ottawa's LRT, an inquiry that came up with more factual evidence and a damning public report. Sadly, though, while being able to give a constructive presentation on the many faults of Ottawa's LRT at that inquiry, I and others were prevented from presenting our objections to the Ford FOI amendments in front of a legislative committee.
The reality is that now all provincial ministers and parliamentary assistant records get to permanently exclude their records dating back to 1988. This goes further than any other Canadian jurisdiction and means Ford, and future premiers of Ontario, can hide the key decision-making records of the government and the lobbying and developer efforts his government receives, with no chance of Information Commissioner reviews. That means that I would now never get the records of auto insurance companies successfully lobbying his cabinet for higher rates that affected millions in Ontario. Nor would I have been able to have the Information Commissioner do reviews that agreed the withheld records could not be claimed as cabinet confidences.
I have so many documents via FOI requests that Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner Pat Kosseim e-mailed me saying I should seek legal assistance if any records I had obtained are now called into question. I know how devastating that can be, having been sued by a commercial company who did not like the wording or my requests for his company's polling contracts in Ottawa, Durham, and Quebec City. After incurring $15,000 in legal expenses, I avoided becoming a party and being held liable for millions of dollars for the libellous action of filing routine contract requests.
