Ontario Premier Doug Ford's personal cellphone records could be released to the public after the province lost a transparency battle. The information and privacy commissioner ruled Ford used his personal phone for government business, making the records public documents.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford 's private cellphone records are one step closer to being released to the public after the province lost a major transparency battle. The Ontario information and privacy commissioner (IPC), who serves as the province's transparency watchdog, has ordered civil servants to officially access Ford 's personal cellphone records and release details of calls he has made and received in his capacity as premier.
In its ruling, the IPC determined that Ford had used his personal phone for government work and, as a result, said his phone records constitute public documents that could be published.\The decision caps off a two-year transparency battle with the Ford government over how Premier Ford conducts government business using a personal device. During the protracted adjudication process, the government initially claimed Ford’s use of his personal cellphone for government business was merely speculation, before Ford’s personal lawyer then accused Global News of engaging in a “blatant fishing expedition” while government lawyers told the IPC it would be difficult and invasive to separate the premier’s personal calls from those related to government business. Ultimately, IPC adjudicator Justine Wai ruled that it was “reasonable to conclude that some of the contents of the call logs” on Ford’s personal phone “relate to a department or government business matter.”\“I find the entries in the call logs relating to government business are under the control of Cabinet Office,” Wai wrote in her ruling. “I order Cabinet Office to obtain the relevant information from the affected party and issue an access decision to the appellant.”\As part of his brand of retail politics, Ford routinely hands out his personal cellphone number as a means of directly communicating with taxpayers and constituents provincewide. Ford has also distributed his digits at business-focused events, including at the Empire Club, a Toronto Real Estate Board conference and a meet-the-workers day. Political critics have pointed to the latter examples as evidence that stakeholders looking to influence government policy have direct access to the province’s top decision-maker and have called for transparency.\For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen. In November 2022, Global News filed a freedom of information request to access the call logs from the premier’s private cellphone for a one-week period. At the time, Ford had publicly suggested that government policy had been influenced by phone calls he received during that period. Soon after, Global News revealed that Ford’s government-issued cellphone went unused for the entire month of November 2022, as well as ... Taken together, an IPC adjudicator found that the regularity with which Ford hands out his phone number and the fact his government phone went unused for months means that at least some of the calls Ford made on his personal device relate to government business. “In the absence of any calls made on the affected party’s government-issued cell phone, and given his public invitation to contact him on his personal cell phone without any apparent limitation as to purpose, it is reasonable to conclude that at least some of the calls made on the affected party’s personal cell phone were made in relation to departmental or government business matters,” Wai wrote in her ruling. Wai added it’s “highly unlikely and unreasonable to believe” that someone occupying the highest elected office at Queen’s Park did not conduct government-related calls on either his taxpayer-funded cellphone or his private device. “It is also unlikely the affected party would have provided his personal cell phone number widely and at public events … and received no calls relating to government or Cabinet Office related matters,” Wai stated. Neither the IPC nor government privacy staff have actually seen Ford’s personal cellphone log, which he and his lawyers have closely guarded through the appeal process. Despite ruling that at least some of the calls on Ford’s personal phone relate to his role as premier and should be made public, the IPC made it clear it doesn’t expect every single call to be released.“I do not find Cabinet Office has control over the entirety of the call logs and I am not ordering a ‘blanket release’ of the call logs,” Wai wrote. Instead, she has told civil servants to get a copy of Ford’s call log and go through it line-by-line to work out which calls may relate to his government and which are genuinely personal. The IPC said the process should be possible for privacy officials and is only necessary because of how the premier has handled his communications. “I acknowledge it can be challenging to separate the different roles the affected party plays as an elected official and private citizen,” Wai wrote
FORD TRANSPARENCY CELLPHONE ONTARIO GOVERNMENT
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