A look at the wave of recent proposals by the Ford government ahead of Ontario’s legislative return | CBC News
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Ontario’s legislature is set to resume sitting Monday after a 14-week break that ended in a veritable deluge of news, partial proposals and headline-grabbing musings from Premier Doug Ford and his government.
It is a flood-the-zone strategy, opposition parties say, in an attempt to drown out criticism over a government plan to keep records of cabinet ministers and the premier — including his cellphone records — secret.
The government announced on March 13 that it would table a bill during the spring session to exempt those records, as well as those of their staff and parliamentary assistants, from freedom-of-information laws.
Stephen Crawford, minister of public and business service delivery, said the move was about bringing Ontario in line with other jurisdictions. Ford, however, also said it was about cellphone records.
“When it comes to a cabinet conversation within cabinet and on personal cellphones, that should not be FOI-able,” he said Tuesday.
Existing laws already exempt any records that reveal cabinet deliberations.
Ontario’s finance minister said he’ll table the provincial budget on March 26. CBC’s Shawn Jeffords breaks down what we know so far about the province’s plans to tackle the U.S. tariffs and support health care.
The clampdown comes as Global News fights a long FOI battle for access to Ford’s call records, which the information and privacy commissioner has said should be public since the premier uses his personal phone for government business. A court earlier this year threw out an attempt by the government to overrule the IPC ruling.
For that reason, the proposed new — and retroactive — law has opposition critics up in arms, setting the stage for freedom-of-information laws to be the unlikely star of the show when the first question period of the session gets underway.
NDP Leader Marit Stiles said the people of Ontario have a right to know who the premier is hearing from as he makes decisions about governing the province.
“What kind of business he was conducting on his cellphone?” she said last week. “He’s fighting pretty damn hard to hide that cellphone record, and I’d like to know why.”
Ontario is proposing excluding cabinet ministers and their offices from access to information requests, in order to align with jurisdictions in other parts of Canada, said Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement Stephen Crawford on Friday. CBC’s Shawn Jeffords explains.
WARNING: This story contains vulgar language.
A busy month for the Ford government
The same day as the FOI announcement, the government also announced it would allow retail shopping on Family Day and Victoria Day, and said it would seek an injunction to block the pro-Palestinian Al-Quds Day rally in Toronto the following day. The ill-fated attempt, however, was not filed with the court until mere hours before the rally started.
In the days since, the stream of news has continued unabated. The attorney general urged the federal government to legalize pepper spray through a seemingly unprompted letter. The premier said during prepared remarks that he wanted to livestream bail hearings, a plan for which his office could offer no details.
The transportation minister announced a plan to let all drivers use high-occupancy vehicle lanes during off-peak hours, though the government does not yet know what those hours will be. The government announced it will allow bring-your-own-booze rules at outdoor festivals and farmers markets.
On Wednesday, the premier congratulated a resident for shooting an alleged home invader.
There have also been announcements tied to the legislature’s return, as the government teases some legislation it will soon introduce and makes pre-budget announcements ahead of Thursday’s fiscal update. Those include capping ticket resale prices and looking to create electronic medical health records.
Doug Ford congratulated a Vaughan homeowner who shot and injured an alleged home invader, adding the homeowner should have “shot him a couple more times.”
‘Game to hide from accountability’: Liberal leader
Interim Liberal Leader John Fraser sees the wild week as a deliberate strategy to avoid scrutiny on difficult subjects.
“The stuff that he does, like you can bring your own booze or you can drive in this lane … it’s the stroke-of-a-pen stuff,” he said.
“It’s just a game. It’s a game to hide from accountability, not just for government records, but for his government’s record on things like health care and education.”
Post-secondary education is also expected to be a hot topic at the legislature. A protest earlier this month over cuts to student assistance grants turned tense, as a statue of George Brown was vandalized and two people were arrested.
Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn announced last month that while the province is giving the post-secondary institutions millions in additional funding, he is also lifting a seven-year tuition fee freeze and drastically scaling back Ontario Student Assistance Program grants in favour of loans.
Students and supporters are planning another protest Tuesday and statues on the grounds of the legislature are being wrapped ahead of that demonstration and others. The Ontario Autism Coalition is also planning a protest on Monday.