Ford government reverses plan to fight FOI disclosure of blue licence plate documents

TORONTO — Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government is reversing its decision to go to court to prevent the release of documents about its ill-fated blue licence plates.

Lawyers for the government applied for a judicial review of decisions by Ontario’s information and privacy commissioner ordering the province to release documents in response to a freedom-of-information request by The Canadian Press.

But the government has now changed its mind and intends to withdraw its application, a spokesperson for the premier’s office said.

The decision was made last week, Ford’s office said. However, it was not mentioned in response to a request for comment Thursday morning, nor earlier on Monday by Stephen Crawford, the minister in charge, when asked about the case in question period.

He instead answered by speaking about the economy.

Crawford, the minister of public and business service delivery and procurement, has ushered in a broader clampdown on public access to government records, with changes to freedom-of-information laws that now ensure records of the premier, cabinet ministers and their staff stay secret.

Access to the blue licence plate documents should not be affected by those changes, and the government now plans to comply with the IPC’s order, Ford’s office said.

NDP Leader Marit Stiles said the government is still willing to drag the public through months of unnecessary fights instead of being straightforward and transparent.

“When we raised this in question period, the minister had the opportunity to come clean,” she wrote in a statement. “Instead, they obfuscated endlessly. It’s hard to take anything this government says seriously.”

Liberal critic Stephanie Smyth said the reversal raises more questions than answers.

“If the government really withdrew the judicial review last week, why did nobody say so until after this story became public?” she wrote in a statement.

“Why was the judicial review filed in the first place if there was supposedly nothing to hide?”

The plates, featuring what critics note are shades of blue similar to Progressive Conservative branding, rolled out in early 2020. Within weeks, a Kingston, Ont., police officer posted a photo to social media showing they were “virtually unreadable” at night and the government ultimately decided to stop issuing them.

However, many of the nearly 200,000 blue plates originally issued were still on Ontario roads.

The Canadian Press made multiple inquiries about plans for getting them out of circulation and government spokespeople said repeatedly that drivers with blue plates would receive instructions on how to replace them “when the time comes.”

But with no such plans apparently forthcoming nearly three years after the blue plates first hit Ontario roads, The Canadian Press filed a freedom-of-information request in late 2022 seeking documents on those plans.

The government found 15 records but denied access to them in full, citing an exemption that protects advice of civil servants as well as an exemption for information that would disclose a “pending policy decision.”

The Canadian Press appealed to the information and privacy commissioner, who concluded earlier this year that while those exemptions did indeed apply, there is a public interest in releasing the documents, outweighing the exemptions.

By the time that IPC decision was released, the government had already publicly revealed their plan in 2024 for getting blue plates off the road — simply waiting for them to be phased out through attrition.

There is still more information the public deserves to know, the IPC’s office concluded.

“I note that since the access request was filed, many of the government’s plans for replacing the blue license plates have already been announced,” the IPC adjudicator wrote.

“However, even when considering the information already available to the public, I continue to find that there is a compelling public interest in disclosure of the records, with the records providing detailed information on the Ontario government’s plans to replace the blue license plates, the different approaches that were considered, and the costs and benefits of each approach.”

The government asked the IPC for a formal reconsideration of its decision, but the IPC again ordered the Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement to release the records.

Instead of doing so, the government initially decided to take the case to court, arguing the IPC’s conclusions are wrong.

“The IPC’s finding that there was a ‘compelling public interest’ in disclosure was made based on no or insufficient evidence, and is therefore unreasonable in light of the record that was before it,” government lawyers wrote to the court.

The government also took the IPC to court over a decision ordering Ford to disclose cellphone records based on an FOI request from Global News, but the government lost. A few months later, the new FOI law was passed, shutting down access to any of Ford’s records.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 25, 2026.

Allison Jones, The Canadian Press