Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government has passed legislation that significantly restricts public access to records held by the premier, cabinet ministers and their political staff, drawing warnings from transparency advocates that it will weaken government accountability. The changes to the province’s freedom-of-information law apply retroactively and are expected to halt ongoing legal cases seeking records related to the Ford government’s Greenbelt controversy, while also extending the time ministries have to respond to information requests. Opposition parties and Ontario’s information and privacy commissioner criticized the reforms as among the most restrictive in the province’s history, while the government argued they align Ontario with other jurisdictions and will have little impact on public access to information.