{"id":541238,"date":"2026-03-17T00:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T00:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/541238\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T00:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T00:46:09","slug":"doug-ford-says-his-cellphone-records-must-remain-hidden-to-protect-privacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/541238\/","title":{"rendered":"Doug Ford says his cellphone records must remain hidden to protect privacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaks with reporters before the First Ministers Meeting in Ottawa in January.Adrian Wyld\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Ontario<\/a> Premier Doug Ford<\/a> is defending his government\u2019s decision to exempt him and his cabinet ministers from freedom of information requests, and said he needs to keep his personal cellphone records hidden to protect the privacy of private citizens who contact him.<\/p>\n

Mr. Ford commented for the first time Monday on his government\u2019s announcement last week that the Premier, cabinet ministers and their offices would no longer be subject to freedom of information requests and will be able to keep documents and e-mails about their decision-making secret.<\/p>\n

It also means the Premier\u2019s cellphone records, which the government had been fighting in court to keep private, will remain shielded from the public.<\/p>\n

Mr. Ford regularly gives out his phone number at public events and said thousands of people text and call him expecting discretion.<\/p>\n

Ontario to introduce bill exempting Premier, cabinet from FOI requests<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI was sworn to confidentiality for constituents, and I\u2019m not going to release personal, confidential information about people\u2019s lives. That\u2019s what it comes down to,\u201d Mr. Ford said at an announcement in Brockville, Ont., about a new correctional facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have an idea. Judge me or judge our party on decisions, not on conversations that we have in a cabinet office or conversations that people trust that you are not going to release.\u201d <\/p>\n

However, the province\u2019s current freedom of information rules already include broad exemptions for cabinet discussions and for the personal, confidential information of individuals.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Mr. Ford repeated his government\u2019s reasoning that the proposed changes are needed to update the \u201cantiquated\u201d 40-year-old legislation to ensure cabinet ministers can have frank conversations about policy decisions in confidence. <\/p>\n

He said the changes also align with policies at the federal level and in most provinces. Opposition parties and other critics, however, have decried the move and said it is an attempt to shield the government from scrutiny and accountability.<\/p>\n

The proposed changes follow the government\u2019s loss in a court battle over the call logs from Mr. Ford\u2019s personal cellphone, which he uses for government business. A court in January sided with the province\u2019s Information and Privacy Commissioner and ordered the records released, but the government had said it would appeal.<\/p>\n

Opinion: Doug Ford stomps all over Toronto, again<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr. Ford on Monday said he receives a thousand calls a day and has thousands of unread text messages. <\/p>\n

\u201cEvery personal problem people have, they call me. I feel like a psychologist every day trying to solve everyone\u2019s personal issues. That is not good to release it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Stephen Crawford, Ontario\u2019s Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement, said the government also intends to address predatory information-gathering from foreign countries and companies, which Mr. Ford suggested comes from China.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to protect ourselves against the Communist Chinese that are infiltrating our country, Canada, the U.S., everything, into our education system, into high-tech companies. That\u2019s who we have to protect from,\u201d Mr. Ford said.<\/p>\n

Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said Mr. Ford is coming up with \u201cridiculous excuses\u201d to justify his changes to the FOI system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Premier isn\u2019t worried about China, he is worried about what the people of Ontario will see when his phone records are released,\u201d she said in a statement Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is democratic backsliding, plain and simple. The Premier is making every excuse under the sun to justify changing the rules so he and his Cabinet can hide from public accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opinion: If Toronto can\u2019t imagine its future, Doug Ford will<\/a><\/p>\n

If passed, the legislation, to be introduced in the spring, would quash existing and future requests for any document held in the Premier\u2019s office and the offices of any of his cabinet ministers, such as their e-mails, internal memos and meeting schedules. <\/p>\n

The proposed exemptions would also cover offices of MPPs who serve as parliamentary assistants, a group that includes all but a handful of the 79 Progressive Conservative MPPs. <\/p>\n

The changes could also affect other access to information battles launched by media outlets, advocacy groups or the opposition. One of them involves a political staffer\u2019s messages related to the government\u2019s aborted attempt to remove land owned by a handful of connected developers from its protected Greenbelt, an affair that is subject to an RCMP probe.<\/p>\n

Ontario\u2019s freedom of information watchdog condemned the exemptions. In a statement last week, Information and Privacy Commissioner Patricia Kosseim called the proposal \u201cshocking\u201d and \u201calarming.\u201d Noting that existing rules protect personal and confidential information, she said the change is \u201cabout hiding government-related business to evade public accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n

And she linked the move to Mr. Ford\u2019s phone-records case: \u201cBy changing the law retroactively, the government\u2019s message is plain: if oversight bodies get in the way, just change the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

With reports from Jeff Gray and Tom Cardoso<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaks with reporters before the First Ministers Meeting in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,43,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,41,39,42,40,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-541238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}