Ontario Premier Doug Ford stood in front of reporters on Tuesday and delivered a message that raised eyebrows across the provincial political landscape. He accused Patricia Kosseim, the province’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, of playing politics with her criticism of sweeping changes to freedom of information laws.
“I’ve never seen a privacy commissioner go out and do media,” Ford told Global News. “It’s very politically driven, in my opinion.”
The premier’s frustration stems from mounting opposition to his government’s plan to grant near-total immunity from transparency requests to ministers, parliamentary assistants, and their staff. That includes Ford himself, whose cellphone records have become a flashpoint in the debate.
Kosseim, appointed by the legislature in 2025, hasn’t minced words about the policy shift. She said the government announced the changes without consulting her office, which oversees transparency and privacy legislation in Ontario. Had they asked, she noted, the province would have received practical advice on alternatives that would have been “far preferred” to what was ultimately decided.
Ford’s office later clarified that Michelle DiEmmanuel, the Secretary of Cabinet, did speak with Kosseim before the announcement. They also acknowledged engagement on certain portions over several months. But there’s a meaningful difference between consultation and simply informing someone about a decision already made.
The premier insists he has “nothing to hide” but worries that releasing his cellphone records could expose personal and health information from residents who text him. Those protections already exist under current legislation, which redacts sensitive personal details before records are released.
Ford also argues the changes align Ontario with practices in other provinces and the federal government. He cited the volume of requests as justification, claiming Ontario receives about 75,000 freedom-of-information requests annually. “That’s more than all provinces in the entire country combined,” he said. “It’s costing thousands and thousands of hours that people should be reallocated.”
Minister Stephen Crawford echoed the premier’s skepticism toward the commissioner’s concerns. “Her word is not gospel,” Crawford told Global News. He pointed to a 2024 court case where Kosseim challenged the government on cabinet confidentiality and lost.
What Crawford didn’t mention is that the government has also lost several court battles on transparency issues. Most recently, a three-judge panel sided with Kosseim and ordered Ford to release his cellphone records. The premier’s office had planned to appeal that ruling before introducing the retroactive legislative changes, which would essentially void the court’s decision.
That timing hasn’t escaped opposition critics. NDP Leader Marit Stiles connected the dots bluntly. “This government is focused on hiding the premier’s cellphone records,” she said. “We know that there must be something pretty damning in those records if they’re taking these kinds of measures.”
The controversy highlights a familiar tension in Canadian governance between operational efficiency and public accountability. Every provincial government wrestles with balancing the administrative burden of transparency requests against the democratic principle that citizens have a right to know how decisions are made.
But the scale of Ontario’s proposed exemption goes beyond typical adjustments. Excluding the premier, cabinet ministers, parliamentary assistants, and all their staff removes a significant portion of the decision-making apparatus from public scrutiny. It’s one thing to streamline processes or clarify existing protections. It’s another to create broad immunity from requests.
Ford’s claim about request volume deserves context. Ontario is Canada’s most populous province, with nearly 40 percent of the country’s population. Higher request numbers make sense when you’re governing over 15 million people. The question isn’t whether Ontario receives more requests than other provinces, but whether the current system is genuinely broken or simply requires better resourcing.
The personal information argument also rings hollow to critics. Freedom of information legislation already includes robust privacy protections. Government officials routinely redact phone numbers, health details, and other sensitive personal data before releasing records. The system isn’t perfect, but those safeguards exist specifically to address Ford’s stated concerns.
What seems to bother the premier most is the commissioner’s public criticism. His suggestion that Kosseim shouldn’t be “doing media” reflects a view that oversight bodies should operate quietly, away from public debate. But transparency watchdogs across Canada regularly issue public statements when they believe democratic principles are at stake. It’s part of their mandate.
Crawford’s dismissal of the commissioner’s authority based on one court loss in 2024 ignores the broader pattern. Courts have sided with Kosseim multiple times, including in the cellphone records case that prompted this legislative response. Cherry-picking judicial outcomes doesn’t strengthen the government’s credibility on transparency issues.
The retroactive nature of the changes adds another layer of concern. Applying new exemptions backward in time to nullify a court ruling feels less like policy improvement and more like moving the goalposts after losing the game. It’s technically legal, but it undermines public confidence in both the courts and the legislative process.
Provincial governments do need flexibility to manage their workloads and protect legitimate privacy interests. But broad exemptions from accountability mechanisms should face rigorous scrutiny, not dismissive accusations that critics are being political. Everyone in this debate is being political because transparency in government is inherently a political question.
Ford insists repeatedly that he has nothing to hide. If that’s true, the simplest path forward would be releasing the cellphone records with appropriate redactions and demonstrating that existing privacy protections work as intended. Instead, the government chose sweeping legislative changes that shield far more than one politician’s phone logs.
The coming weeks will reveal whether public pressure forces the government to narrow its proposed exemptions or whether Ontario moves forward with one of the most restrictive freedom of information regimes in the country. Either way, this controversy has already damaged the government’s reputation on transparency issues.
When a premier has to repeatedly insist he has nothing to hide while simultaneously changing laws to avoid disclosure, the public is left drawing its own conclusions about what might be in those records.
