Province of Ontario · Freedom of Information & Protection of Privacy Act, 1988
The FOI Track Record
A timeline of Ontario cases where FOI requests and follow‑up reviews actually changed what we know, either by releasing documents that weren't public before, or by revealing how records were handled behind the scenes. Ontario provincial scope only: FIPPA 1988–2026.
Period1988–2026
ScopeOntario FIPPA only
ExcludedFederal ATIA · Municipal MFIPPA
Published byThe Delusioneers
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How it came out: ✓ FOI Request AG Report IPC Investigation Court Proceeding Ombudsman / Commissioner Journalism / Leak Mixed
Official Position / Public Record
What Was Actually Revealed
FIPPA Foundations · Peterson / Rae Eras · 1988–1995 Liberal · NDP
—
1988–1989 · Peterson (Liberal)
FIPPA's First Orders — Burden of Justification
Ontario ministries initially treated FIPPA refusals as a default option, providing minimal justification for withholding records. The legal standard for what the government had to demonstrate to refuse access was untested.
IPC Adjudication
IPC Orders P-48 and P-78 established that Ontario ministries must justify refusals under the Act's specific exemptions — the burden of proof sits with the institution, not the requester. This laid the legal groundwork for every subsequent disclosure fight. Without this foundational precedent, the 407 fight, the gas plants battle, and the mandate letters case would have had no floor to stand on.
FOI role: the requests triggered adjudication that built the legal architecture. No dramatic disclosure — these cases matter because they established what "access" actually means.
IPC Order P-48 · IPC Order P-78
—
Early-to-mid 1990s · Rae (NDP)
Nuclear Emergency Planning — Public Safety Records
The provincial government withheld records related to nuclear emergency planning, including potassium iodide distribution protocols. The government maintained these records fell outside the reach of public access on safety and security grounds.
IPC Adjudication
IPC Order P-956 adjudicated an early test of whether public-safety planning records could be permanently shielded from access requests. The denial was upheld — but the case established that public-safety secrecy claims must still be evaluated against the Act's specific exemptions, not asserted as automatic. The government cannot invoke "safety" as a blanket override; it must justify each record.
FOI role: the request was denied. The case's significance is the legal standard it produced, not a disclosure.
IPC Order P-956
Harris / Eves Era · 1995–2003 Progressive Conservative
01
1996–2000
Walkerton Water Safety / Privatization of Testing
The Harris government maintained that privatizing water quality testing was a cost-saving measure consistent with public safety standards. The connection between that decision and the May 2000 E. coli outbreak — which killed seven people and sickened 2,300 — was disputed.
Court Proceeding Journalism
Internal Environment Ministry records showed the government had been warned about the risks of privatizing water testing before the disaster. The decisive disclosure came through the O'Connor Commission of Inquiry — not through successful FOI release. FOI attempts were largely frustrated. The inquiry compelled the documents.
FOI role: supplementary and largely unsuccessful. The inquiry was the primary mechanism. This distinction matters.
Report of the Walkerton Inquiry (O'Connor, 2002) · CBC
02
1999–2000
Highway 407 Sale — Highest Bid Selected
The government maintained it selected the best bid for the 407 privatization, maximizing value for Ontario taxpayers in a competitive process.
✓ FOI Request Journalism / Leak
Confidential documents obtained through FOI litigation and confidential sources revealed the Harris government rejected a bid that would have extended the 407 at no public construction cost — and chose the higher up-front cash bid instead. The shortfall would cost Ontarians for decades in tolls. IPC Orders PO-1974 and PO-1977 adjudicated related access disputes.
Globe and Mail · IPC Orders PO-1974, PO-1977
—
Mid-to-late 1990s · Harris (PC)
Nuclear Emergency Planning — Safety Records, Round Two
A requester challenged provincial secrecy around nuclear emergency planning records under the Harris government. The government maintained these records were exempt from public access on safety grounds.
IPC Adjudication
IPC Order P-901 adjudicated the challenge and the denial was upheld. Taken together with the Rae-era P-956, this established a consistent pattern: nuclear emergency planning records are shielded across administrations, regardless of party. The pattern itself is the finding — what the public cannot learn about emergency consequences near nuclear facilities is a structural feature of Ontario's access regime, not an anomaly.
FOI role: denied. The significance is the durable precedent for public-safety secrecy, not a disclosure.
IPC Order P-901
McGuinty Era · 2003–2013 Liberal
03
2005–2007
Brampton Civic Hospital — P3 Contract Costs
The government maintained the P3 financing model for Brampton's new hospital was cost-effective and represented sound value for public money.
Court Proceeding
Court-ordered disclosure showed the government knew the P3 project could cost substantially more than public financing. FIPPA and commercial-confidentiality barriers had blocked direct access. The key records came through litigation — not a clean FOI release. FIPPA's commercial-confidentiality exemptions had held for years.
FOI role: blocked. Court proceedings were the mechanism.
CUPE Ontario · Ontario Health Coalition
04
May–Jun 2009
eHealth Ontario — Untendered Consulting Contracts
The government defended eHealth Ontario's procurement processes and denied systemic contracting problems at the provincial health IT agency.
✓ FOI Request AG Report
PC caucus FOI requests revealed millions in untendered consulting contracts and absent procurement records, triggering executive resignations. The Auditor General later substantiated and expanded the findings. FOI was the primary trigger; the AG confirmed the full scope.
CBC · Ontario Auditor General · Public Accounts Committee
05
2012–2013
Gas Plants Cancellation — Missing Records
The government initially produced limited documentation about the $1.1B cancellation of two gas plant contracts in Oakville and Mississauga. Senior political staff denied systemic deletion of relevant records.
IPC Investigation Legislative Order
Opposition FOI requests exposed conspicuously empty records from key aides — the absence itself became the story. A Speaker's contempt ruling followed when the Energy Minister refused legislative production orders. The IPC's 2013 special report Deleting Accountability found senior Liberal political staff had illegally deleted gas plant emails. OPP criminal investigation launched.
FOI role: trigger. The decisive accountability came through an IPC special investigation and legislative contempt process, not the FOI release itself.
IPC, Deleting Accountability (2013) · CTV · Global News · CBC
Wynne Era · 2013–2018 Liberal
06
2015–2018
Hydro One Partial Privatization — Executive Compensation
After the Wynne government partially privatized Hydro One, the corporation maintained that executive pay details were now private commercial information and not subject to normal public disclosure requirements.
Journalism
FIPPA requests were resisted — the privatization had deliberately placed Hydro One outside FIPPA's reach. Some compensation figures eventually emerged through corporate disclosure routes rather than access law. The refusal to disclose became the accountability story: restructuring as a mechanism to block transparency.
FOI role: blocked by design. The structural exclusion itself was the finding. No successful FOI disclosure.
Ontario NDP · Ontario PC · CBC
07
2011–2012
Ministry of Finance — FOI Processing Practices
The Ministry of Finance maintained its Freedom of Information processing procedures followed established protocols.
IPC Investigation
An IPC investigation found that "contentious issues management" inside the Ministry had caused unacceptable delays on at least one FOI request — meaning political sensitivity was influencing which requests got answered and when.
IPC, Report into Contentious Issues Management in the Ministry of Finance
Ford Era · 2018–2026 Progressive Conservative
08
2018–2024
Cabinet Mandate Letters — 23 Letters Withheld
The Ford government argued its 23 ministerial mandate letters were exempt from FIPPA under the cabinet-records provision. The government fought disclosure for six years.
✓ FOI Request Court Proceeding
CBC's 2018 FOI request triggered a six-year legal battle through IPC, Divisional Court, Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada. The SCC ruled the letters were exempt — broadening cabinet secrecy beyond 30 years of IPC precedent. The mandate letter to Steve Clark instructing Greenbelt "expansions and contractions" was later independently confirmed by the Auditor General.
FOI role: the trigger. The fight itself — not a successful disclosure — produced accountability. The government won, and the law got worse.
CBC · IPC Order PO-3973 · SCC, Ontario (AG) v. Ontario (IPC), 2024
09
2020–2021
COVID-19 Long-Term Care — Government Preparedness
The government maintained it had responded swiftly to protect long-term care residents when COVID-19 arrived. The Ombudsman found the system "wholly incapable" of protecting them.
✓ FOI Request Ombudsman AG Report
CBC FOI requests obtained internal documents showing Ontario gave far less early planning attention to long-term care than to hospitals. Zero inspections of LTC facilities for seven weeks during the deadliest period. 4,000+ LTC deaths. AG found $1.4 billion in PPE written off. The government is now burning expired equipment.
CBC · Ombudsman · AG · LTC Commission Final Report (2021)
10
2023–2024
Ontario Science Centre — Closure Justified by Engineering
The Ford government said the Ontario Science Centre at Don Mills had to be closed immediately due to structural safety concerns identified in engineering assessments. Infrastructure Ontario cited urgent building safety requirements.
✓ FOI Request
FOI requests filed by Canadian Architect produced draft engineering reports that did not support the government's public rationale for the closure. The drafts indicated the structural issues, while real, did not require immediate and permanent closure — materially advancing the case that the decision was political, made to clear the site for the Ontario Place / Therme development.
Canadian Architect · Infrastructure Ontario
—
2016–2018 · Request originated under Wynne; orders issued under Ford
Pickering Nuclear — Accident Consequence Data
Greenpeace Canada sought records from the province about the potential consequences of a serious accident at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station — what would happen to people living near the facility in a major incident. The government withheld the records on safety and security grounds.
IPC Adjudication
IPC Orders PO-2960-I, PO-3019-F, and PO-3909 adjudicated the challenge across multiple rounds. The denial was upheld at each stage. The result: what the province knows about nuclear accident consequences near Pickering is not public information. Combined with the Harris-era P-901 and Rae-era P-956, this establishes a 30-year pattern — nuclear emergency consequence data has been shielded from public access under every party in government.
FOI role: denied across three IPC orders. The secrecy around emergency consequences is the story. No disclosure was made.
IPC Orders PO-2960-I · PO-3019-F · PO-3909 · Greenpeace Canada
11
2022–Ongoing
Greenbelt Land Swap — Decision-Making Process
The Ford government maintained the Greenbelt land swap — removing 7,400 acres for housing development — followed a proper, documented decision-making process. Key officials gave sworn accounts of how the decisions were made.
✓ FOI Request IPC Investigation AG Report
NDP and journalist FOI requests exposed staff using coded language — "G*", "Special Project", "SP" — in emails specifically to evade FOI searches. Personal email accounts used for government business. The IPC found a "near-total absence" of decision-making records for a policy worth $8.3B to developers. Internal email retrieved from a personal account contradicted sworn testimony. Won the 2024 Code of Silence Award. RCMP investigation ongoing.
Ontario NDP · Global News · IPC Special Report · The Narwhal · The Globe and Mail
12
2019–Ongoing
Ontario Place / Therme — Fair and Open Procurement
The government described the Ontario Place redevelopment and Therme concession as the product of a fair, transparent, and accountable bidding process that selected the best operator for the site.
✓ FOI Request AG Report
FOI and AG investigations revealed: process was "not fair, transparent or accountable." Therme claimed to operate 6 spa locations; it operated 1. An Infrastructure Ontario VP made forbidden contact with bidders. Parking garage plans were dated seven months before the bid was even announced. The Science Centre was closed to clear the site. Total public cost ballooned from $424M to $2.24B.
AG Ontario (2024) · NDP FOI · CTV · Globe and Mail
13
2023–2024
Ontario Place Advertising Campaign — Purpose
The government did not proactively disclose the budget or purpose of its Ontario Place advertising campaigns. It initially refused to confirm the spending amount.
✓ FOI Request
NDP FOI requests revealed $2M was budgeted explicitly to counter negative public reaction to the Therme spa deal — not to inform, but to manage sentiment. A second $1.74M campaign followed. Total: $3.74M in taxpayer-funded advertising to defend a decision the public opposed.
Global News · NDP FOI · Chris Glover MPP
14
Oct 2025
Skills Development Fund — Grant Selection Process
The government maintained that SDF grants were awarded through a merit-based process administered by the Ministry of Labour to support genuine workforce training.
✓ FOI Request AG Special Report
A Trillium FOI request costing $142.50 cracked open a $1.3B scandal. The AG Special Report confirmed: $742M in SDF grants went to projects ranked poor, low, or medium by career civil servants — overridden by the Labour Minister's office. 64 of those projects hired registered lobbyists. OPP anti-rackets investigation launched.
FOI was the trigger. The AG's special report was the scale-confirming mechanism.
The Trillium / Village Media · AG Special Report · CTV
15
2025
Ring of Fire Advertising — Promotional Campaign
The government ran television advertising featuring footage presented as illustrating the Ring of Fire mining district in Northern Ontario.
✓ FOI Request
CBC FOI requests revealed $7.5M spent on ads for a mining project at least a decade from production. CBC verified zero footage in the ads was actually from the Ring of Fire — stock footage came from Australia, Sweden, and Russia. Total campaign budget: $12.2M. The production budget included $60K to remove a "shoe scene" from the TV spot.
CBC News FOI
16
2024–25 Fiscal Year
Government Advertising — Informing Ontarians
The government characterized its advertising programs as public information campaigns serving the public interest, informing Ontarians about government programs and services.
AG Annual Report
The Auditor General found $111.9M in taxpayer-funded advertising in fiscal 2024–25 — the highest ever recorded. 38% was explicitly designed to create a "positive impression" of the government, timed before a snap election call. Lifetime total since 2018: $452M. Many ads contained unsupported claims.
FOI role: none direct. This was an AG Annual Report finding. Included because it contextualizes the FOI record.
Auditor General of Ontario, Annual Report 2025
17
Jan 2026
Bike Lane Removal — Congestion Relief
The Ford government argued that removing protected bike lanes from major Toronto streets would reduce traffic congestion and improve travel times for drivers. It hired external legal counsel to fight a court ruling against the removals.
✓ FOI Request
Cycle Toronto FOI requests revealed $270K spent on outside counsel to fight a court ruling that concluded removing the lanes would "put people at increased risk of harm and death." Internal documents showed the government's own ministry assessed that removal might not reduce congestion — contradicting the public rationale.
Cycle Toronto FOI · CBC News
18
Dec 2022–Mar 2026
Premier's Personal Cellphone — Government Use
The government denied that records from Doug Ford's personal cellphone constituted government records subject to FIPPA, and fought disclosure for over three years.
✓ FOI Request Court Proceeding
Global News FOI for Ford's personal phone call logs produced IPC orders, then a court finding: it was "reasonable to conclude" Ford uses his personal phone for government communications — making those records subject to FIPPA. The court sided with Global News in January 2026. Bill 97's retroactive amendment would eliminate this case entirely, applying backwards to January 1, 1988.
Global News · IPC · Ontario Divisional Court
19
2020–2026
Child Welfare Deaths — Reporting Practices
The government produced annual reports on child welfare system outcomes under standard reporting practices. No public announcement was made about changes to reporting.
✓ FOI Request
Global News FOI requests revealed a child in Ontario's welfare system died on average every three days: 354 deaths between 2020–2022; 134 deaths in 2023 alone. When the same FOI was refiled for 2024–2025, the government said the reports no longer exist. They stopped making them.
Global News FOI
20
2020–2024
Ministerial Zoning Orders — Housing Need
The government maintained that Ministerial Zoning Orders were issued on the basis of housing need and community benefit, following normal planning considerations and independent of political relationships.
✓ FOI Request AG Report Journalism
FOI requests and AG investigations found many MZOs benefited the same cluster of seven developers. Internal emails showed municipal concerns were systematically overridden. PC Party donor connections documented across multiple recipients. The pattern suggested political access, not planning need, was the operative criterion.
Global News · The Narwhal · Auditor General
21
2023–2025
IPC Orders — Compliance by Government Institutions
The government did not publicly address IPC orders with which it had failed to comply, including orders related to the Solicitor General's office.
IPC Investigation Journalism
Ontario's transparency watchdog reported increasing non-compliance with its binding orders. The Solicitor General's office ignored an IPC order on Ford's driver notes and a two-year-old OPP detachment request. Work only restarted when Global News sent questions — suggesting political interference in the FOI process itself. The IPC said it was forced to "intervene directly."
FOI role: the underlying requests triggered the orders; non-compliance was exposed by journalism, not FOI.
Global News · IPC Annual Report
22
2024–2026
Public Performance Metrics — Government Tracking
The Premier's office called characterizations of its metrics removal "factually incorrect," disputing that key public accountability markers had been removed from government websites and reports.
Journalism
Global News documented: transit opening dates deleted from public dashboards; greenhouse gas reduction targets scrapped after the AG found they would be missed; housing tracker frozen at 2024 data; hospital hallway care metrics eliminated. The scorecard was erased.
FOI role: none direct. Investigative journalism tracked the removals. Included because it forms part of the same accountability pattern.
Global News
23
Jan 2025
FOI Processing — Statutory Timelines
Government institutions are required under FIPPA to respond to FOI requests within 30 days (extendable in defined circumstances). The government did not publicly acknowledge a pattern of election-period delays.
✓ FOI Request Journalism
The Pointer documented that every FOI request it filed — some dating back to August 2024 — was delayed past the February 27, 2025 snap election. Extensions were granted by government institutions on the same day Premier Ford called the election. Ontario voters went to the polls without answers to outstanding public interest questions.
The Pointer
24
Mar 2026
Starlink Contract Cancellation — Transparency Pledge
Ford had pledged to disclose the terms of the cancelled $100M Starlink/SpaceX broadband contract, including any cancellation fee paid to Elon Musk's company.
Journalism
Despite Ford's public pledge, the government announced the kill fee would be kept permanently confidential. The announcement came the same week as the Bill 97 FOI restriction changes — announced together, the effect is a government that can hide contract cancellation costs and exclude itself from FOI simultaneously.
FOI role: none. The story is the refusal and the timing. No FOI disclosure was made or succeeded.
Canadian Press · CBC
25
2023
Premier's Daughter's Stag and Doe — Developer Tickets
The Premier did not proactively disclose that tickets to a family event had been sold to developers through the PC Party Fund Chair. He was ultimately cleared of an Integrity Act breach.
Integrity Commissioner
The Integrity Commissioner's review revealed the PC Fund Chair sold 20 tickets to developers for Ford's daughter's event. The Commissioner cleared Ford of a technical Integrity Act breach — but the disclosure of the conduct came through the Commissioner's process, not proactively. Cleared, not clean.
FOI role: none. Integrity Commissioner process.
Integrity Commissioner · CTV · Globe and Mail
26
March 13, 2026
Bill 97 — FIPPA Amendments
"This government has probably been one of the most transparent governments in the history of Ontario." — Minister Stephen Crawford, March 13, 2026. The government characterized Bill 97's FIPPA amendments as routine modernization.
Legislative Action
Schedule 7 of Bill 97 inserts ss. 65(18)–(21) into FIPPA, exempting records of the Premier, cabinet ministers, parliamentary assistants, and their offices from access law — with a retroactive commencement clause deemed in force since January 1, 1988. This eliminates the Global News cellphone case, all outstanding minister's office FOI requests, and any future access to political-office records. Response timelines extended to 63 days. The IPC Commissioner publicly opposed the changes.
Bill 97, Plan to Protect Ontario Act, 2026, Schedule 7 · IPC Commissioner's Statement · CBC · CCLA
Cases reviewed
30
FOI was primary mechanism
13
FOI blocked or frustrated
5
FOI was trigger; other mechanism confirmed
5
No FOI mechanism
3
Years of FIPPA in effect
38
In the most consequential cases — Walkerton, gas plants, Hydro One — FOI either failed or was supplementary. The decisive mechanism was a commission of inquiry, legislative contempt, or IPC special investigation. FOI's record is strongest in the Ford era, where it consistently surfaced information the government did not intend to release. That is the record Bill 97 is designed to end.
A note on mechanism
This document distinguishes between FOI as the primary mechanism, FOI as a trigger (where the actual accountability came from a subsequent IPC investigation, court case, or AG report), and cases where FOI was attempted but blocked. That distinction is the point. A government that fights every significant FOI request through three courts — and then changes the law retroactively when it loses — is using the judicial process as delay, not transparency. The cases marked "FOI blocked" are accountability stories too: the absence of disclosure is data.

Sources: CBC, Global News, The Trillium, The Pointer, The Narwhal, Canadian Architect, Ontario NDP, IPC of Ontario, Auditor General of Ontario, Ontario Divisional Court, Supreme Court of Canada, Integrity Commissioner of Ontario.
All items sourced from public reporting
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FIPPA-1988-2026-RIP