B.C.’s FOI bill passes 2nd reading following hours-long filibuster
Published 1:51 pm Thursday, May 7, 2026
The provincial government’s freedom of information bill is moving forward despite a filibuster that kept MLAs in the house until nearly 4 a.m. Thursday.
House leader Mike Farnworth acknowledged Thursday afternoon that it was a late night.
“In terms of managing the house time, one of the tools I have is to say, ‘OK, you want to talk?’ … So when we come to the normal adjourn time, I make a motion that allows the house to continue sitting until we decide that we’re not going to sit, and that’s what happened last night.”
The filibuster, he said, is not used very often anymore, but used to be more common.
Discussion on Bill 9, the Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection Amendment Act, began in the early afternoon on Wednesday and continued until the vote and the house was adjourned at 3:54 a.m. on Thursday.
“When you see an Opposition is spending 30 minutes on the speech – a maximum amount of time – when in many cases, in my experience, you will spend 10 to 20 minutes, and I’m like, ‘OK, they want to take this for quite some time,’ and that’s their right to do so.”
However, Farnworth added his job as house leader is to “ensure that the government gets what it needs,” and that happened.
“The opposition got to have its filibuster, and we got to get the bill through the second reading.”
Bill 9 got through second reading with 48 yeas, including Independent MLAs, Surrey South MLA Elenore Sturko and Penticton-Summerland MLA Amelia Boultbee, voting with the B.C. NDP.
There were 42 nays.
B.C. Conservative interim Leader Trevor Halford acknowledged that Farnworth brought in a motion at 7 p.m. Wednesday, the house would adjourn at 3 a.m. Thursday.
“We took him by this word. We did because we weren’t going to give up the opportunity to express our democratic right to talk about the egregious errors that are within Bill 9.”
Halford said he believes a six-month pause would be the right thing to do, and many of his MLAs spoke to that.
“But for (the NDP government) to come in at 3 in the morning and tap out which is, which is exactly what they said ‘enough,’ and then close that debate, but close second reading, I think, shows exactly why they want to make changes to FOI, because they do not want to be transparent.”
Halford promised to continue fighting against the bill.
Bill 9, the Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection Amendment Act, expands the authority of public officials to refuse information requests if complying would be too difficult or interfere with government operations.
Citizens’ Services Minister Diana Gibson said the intention of Bill 9 is for modernization while protecting people’s right to access to information.
Gibson said the Opposition had “a lot of opportunity” during second reading and then again through the filibuster.
“I’m really looking forward to the committee where we actually get to speak to the merits of the legislation and have a real debate about the content,” she told the media in Victoria.
Gibson said jurisdictions across the country are struggling with the volume of freedom of information requests, adding there’s “misinformation” around the issues of volume.
She said overall pages processed is up almost twofold, and the size of the average FOI is up more than four times.
“That kind of size and complexity is challenging jurisdictions, and other jurisdictions are pulling back on oversight, pulling back on access. We’ve been clear from the beginning, we are maintaining oversight and access.”
The bill has already received pushback from others, including the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. On April 22, Carson Binda called for politicians of all parties to stand up and oppose the bill.
“It waters down the government’s requirement to respond to freedom of information requests without delay, leaving it up to the government to decide what’s reasonable,” he told reporters on the steps of the B.C. legislature on April 22.
– With files from Mark Page