Doug Ford is revealing his hypocrisy around transparency
March 20, 2026
By Elizabeth Renzetti, Contributing Columnist
Elizabeth Renzetti is a Toronto-based contributing columnist for the Star and author of “What She Said: Conversations About Equality.”
Maybe you should hire Doug Ford to conceal the chocolate at your Easter egg hunt, because he’s sure good at hiding things. If Ontario’s premier gets his way, he’s going to make his government’s internal dealings vanish from public view. It’s quite the trick — and he’s hoping that you’ll be so distracted you won’t notice.
Ford’s government just announced that it will be introducing changes to the province’s transparency laws in order to shield the premier and cabinet ministers from freedom of information requests. FOIs are the investigative tools that journalists, members of the public, and opposition politicians use to uncover the gristle hidden inside the messy sausage of our democracy. If you’ve heard about the Greenbelt scandal, the Skills Development Fund shady dealing, or Metrolinx infighting, it’s likely because someone applied for and received documents through a freedom of information request.
This is not just a terrible decision that will increase mistrust of public officials, it’s a breathtaking act of hypocrisy. Didn’t Doug Ford brag about having “the most transparent, the most accountable” caucus ever? Didn’t he just call for bail hearings to be livestreamed, in order to open the process to scrutiny and “bring our bail system out into the open?” To update an old saying: transparency for thee, but not for me.
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