Transparency Frozen: Doug Ford Said Freedom of Information Wouldn’t Change — Then Shut Down the Whole System

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

21 May 2026 

QUEEN’S PARK, ON. — Ontario Liberal Interim Leader John Fraser issued the following statement in response    to reporting that the Ford government has ordered freedom of information requests frozen across all ministries. 

This is wrong. 

The Ford government has told freedom of information staff across every ministry to stop releasing records. They didn’t say why. They didn’t say for how long. 

Look at the pattern. First they passed the most restrictive FOI law in nearly 40 years. Then they used it to bury the Greenbelt files and Doug Ford’s cellphone records. Now they’ve shut the whole system down. 

This goes beyond the law they passed. It’s a full shutdown of the system — the very thing they swore would never happen and called us alarmist for warning about. 

Freedom of information is not optional. It does not go on breaks. It is a right that belongs to every person in this province. 

So what is Doug Ford afraid of people seeing? The number attached to the Metrolinx air rights affair settlement? How much taxpayer money was lost on the private jet? Something else, tied to the Greenbelt, Ontario Place, or the Skills Development Fund? 

People have a right to know what their government does with their money and in their name. A government with nothing to hide does not shut the system down. 

Doug Ford needs to lift this freeze. And he needs to tell people the truth about why he ordered it.