Stop throwing good money after bad

Earlier this week, CBC News reported that the Supreme Court of Canada had begun to hear the Ontario government’s appeal of the decision to compel the government to release their mandate letters to the public.

Premier Ford refused to publish his ministers’ mandate letters when he was first elected five years ago. CBC Toronto filed a freedom of information request, but the government denied access. When the Information and Privacy Commissioner ordered the government to release the letters in 2019, the government still refused, and has gone on to unsuccessfully appeal that decision in the Divisional Court and the Ontario Court of Appeal.

This week’s appeal marks their final option to block publication of the letters.

Mandate letters are the blueprint for how a minister’s time in office—their goals and priorities, and what steps they intend to take to realize them. Mandate letters were introduced to Ontario by the McGuinty government. They were expressly meant to be open to the public, and for good reason.

Open, accessible mandate letters have historically allowed for transparency and accountability. They are foundational to ministry and transfer payment agency operation and a means of measuring policy progress.

After all, if you’re a publicly elected official working in the best interests of the public, what do you have to hide? Why would you not want the public knowing your intentions?

Yet the Ontario government has chosen to throw good money after bad in attempting to block accountability and transparency through a legal battle that has stretched over a staggering five years and four legal forums.

Of course, this government has a history of using taxpayer funds to appeal, frustrate, and curb not only freedom of information, but free and fair collective bargaining. We need only look to the government’s refusal to drop its appeal of the Ontario Superior Court’s decision to strike down the wage-limiting Bill 124 for another example.

They have also demonstrated a resistance to transparency, even when public funds are at stake—just last week, I once again called on the government to instill transparency within its contracting process, a process in which public servants and the public itself have lost all confidence in.

It's time to stop throwing good money after bad.

Stronger together,