Provincial laws make it harder to access government records

Access to information and freedom of information (FOI) laws allow citizens to request records held by public bodies, including governments. FOI legislation is founded on the idea that Canadian citizens have the right to know what their governments are doing, and to hold them accountable for it.

That premise is under strain. Since 2024, British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario have introduced new legislation that gives public bodies more room to withhold, delay or dismiss records requests. Ottawa is now weighing changes of its own.

At the core of each of these changes is an increase in the discretion afforded to government agencies. This discretion allows for exemptions of information for certain individuals and lets government agencies delay and deny requests.

These changes will have a major impact on government transparency in Canada by making it harder for journalists to do investigative work, activists to confront state power and citizens to hold governments to account.

Alberta’s Bill 34

Alberta was the first province to pass its updated legislation. Bill 34, the Access to Information Act, received royal assent on Dec. 5, 2024, and came into force on June 11, 2025, replacing the province’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Alberta’s government framed the bill as fixing “outdated” legislation from a pre-digital era.

The new legislation created a new category of “political staff” whose communications with cabinet ministers are now exempt from disclosure. What constitutes political staff is not clearly defined, meaning it could theoretically extend to administrative personnel or even janitorial staff.

These are arguably some of the most important documents that citizens should have access to. Records like these show how decisions are made and how taxpayer money is spent.

The act also gives public bodies the right to disregard or refuse requests that are deemed abusive, repetitive, unclear or overly broad.

Ontario’s Bill 97

Ontario followed Alberta’s lead with Bill 97, an omnibus budget bill passed on April 23, 2026 that rewrote the province’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

The government has said the changes bring the province in line with other jurisdictions across the country.

The new law excludes records held by the premier, cabinet ministers, parliamentary assistants and their staff from freedom-of-information requests, and applies that exclusion retroactively to requests already filed. It also issued longer timelines for responding to a request.

The bill followed a January 2026 court ruling that ordered Premier Doug Ford to produce government-related call logs from his personal cellphone, sought by Global News since 2022. After Bill 97 passed, the government then invoked the new exclusion to deny Global‘s request for Ford’s records retroactively.

British Columbia’s Bill 9

British Columbia passed its own amendments, Bill 9, on May 28, 2026. The bill expands the grounds on which a public body can reject or delay a request, including if a request is deemed “excessively broad” or would “unreasonably interfere” with government operations.

It also allows a public body to disregard a request it considers abusive or malicious, and it replaces the law’s longstanding duty to respond “without delay” with a duty to respond “without reasonable delay.”

B.C. Citizens’ Services Minister Diana Gibson said the changes are designed to help a system overwhelmed by growing volumes of digital records.

While today’s system is not equipped to handle the current reality of FOI requests due to lack of resources, an issue that information and privacy commissioners have repeatedly reported on, these new changes do not address that.

Rob Botterell, the BC Greens MLA who helped draft B.C.’s original 1992 FOI law, said in a statement that “piece by piece, the system has been dismantled,” calling it an “evisceration of this cornerstone legislation.”

Ottawa might follow suit

The federal government under Prime Minister Mark Carney appears to be weighing similar moves. In March 2026, the Treasury Board Secretariat published a set of proposed policy approaches as part of its five-year review of the Access to Information Act.

One proposal is to redefine what constitutes an official record. It would exempt any records that don’t hold what the government calls “business value,” like emails and meeting minutes of certain personnel. However, it is exactly in records like these that we can find out what governments are really up to.

Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard released a statement following the publication of the review, raising concerns that several of the proposed measures would weaken the right of access and cautioning that the government’s approach favours administrative convenience.

What’s at stake

FOI is important for journalism, activism and civic life. Journalists have used FOI requests to reveal a multitude of government scandals, which would not have seen the light of day without FOI.

These examples include corruption in government offices, government workers abusing use of public travel funds, cronyism and nepotism in land sales across Ontario’s greenbelt and overcrowding and abuse in Ontario’s jails.

Restricting journalists’ ability to report can infringe on Section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protects freedom of expression. In a 2010 case, the Supreme Court of Canada recognized that Section 2(b) can include a right to government-held records — but only a narrow one.

A claimant has to show that access is necessary for meaningful public discussion of a matter of public importance, and even then, the right won’t apply where privilege or institutional function stands in the way.

Separately, the Supreme Court has recognized access to government-held information as quasi-constitutional, meaning access laws should remain paramount and take precedence over new government priorities.

Worth fighting for

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has argued that, without knowing what government agencies are really doing, the ability to cast a fully informed and autonomous vote is put in jeopardy.

Activists use FOI to contest state secrecy and map how government networks operate. It remains one of the few tools ordinary citizens have to hold political elites in check.

At a time when we are seeing rising authoritarianism across the world, fighting for access rights is part of the fight for democracy itself. Three provinces have already narrowed that access, and more may follow.

» Kevin Walby is a professor of criminal justice at the University of Winnipeg. Raina DeGroot is a doctor of law candidate at the University of Manitoba.

» This column was originally published at The Conversation Canada: theconversation.com/ca