B.C.\u2019s FOI bill passes 2nd reading following hours-long filibuster<\/p>\n
Published 1:51 pm Thursday, May 7, 2026<\/p>\n
The provincial government\u2019s freedom of information bill is moving forward despite a filibuster that kept MLAs in the house until nearly 4 a.m. Thursday.<\/p>\n
House leader Mike Farnworth acknowledged Thursday afternoon that it was a late night.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of managing the house time, one of the tools I have is to say, \u2018OK, you want to talk?\u2019 \u2026 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\u2019re not going to sit, and that\u2019s what happened last night.\u201d<\/p>\n
The filibuster, he said, is not used very often anymore, but used to be more common.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you see an Opposition is spending 30 minutes on the speech \u2013 a maximum amount of time \u2013 when in many cases, in my experience, you will spend 10 to 20 minutes, and I\u2019m like, \u2018OK, they want to take this for quite some time,\u2019 and that\u2019s their right to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Farnworth added his job as house leader is to \u201censure that the government gets what it needs,\u201d and that happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe opposition got to have its filibuster, and we got to get the bill through the second reading.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
There were 42 nays.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe took him by this word. We did because we weren\u2019t going to give up the opportunity to express our democratic right to talk about the egregious errors that are within Bill 9.\u201d<\/p>\n
Halford said he believes a six-month pause would be the right thing to do, and many of his MLAs spoke to that.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut for (the NDP government) to come in at 3 in the morning and tap out which is, which is exactly what they said \u2018enough,\u2019 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Halford promised to continue fighting against the bill.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Citizens\u2019 Services Minister Diana Gibson said the intention of Bill 9 is for modernization while protecting people\u2019s right to access to information.<\/p>\n
Gibson said the Opposition had \u201ca lot of opportunity\u201d during second reading and then again through the filibuster.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m 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,\u201d she told the media in Victoria.<\/p>\n
Gibson said jurisdictions across the country are struggling with the volume of freedom of information requests, adding there\u2019s \u201cmisinformation\u201d around the issues of volume.<\/p>\n
She said overall pages processed is up almost twofold, and the size of the average FOI is up more than four times.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat kind of size and complexity is challenging jurisdictions, and other jurisdictions are pulling back on oversight, pulling back on access. We\u2019ve been clear from the beginning, we are maintaining oversight and access.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt waters down the government\u2019s requirement to respond to freedom of information requests without delay, leaving it up to the government to decide what\u2019s reasonable,\u201d he told reporters on the steps of the B.C. legislature on April 22.<\/p>\n
\u2013 With files from Mark Page<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"B.C.\u2019s FOI bill passes 2nd reading following hours-long filibuster Published 1:51 pm Thursday, May 7, 2026 The provincial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[903,49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-655773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655773","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=655773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}