The government of Ontario has implemented significant modifications to its transparency laws, restricting public access to records held by high-level political officials and altering the procedural requirements for information requests.

安大略省政府已對其透明度法例進行重大修改，限制公眾查閱高階政治官員持有的記錄，並更改了資訊請求的程序要求。

The enactment of Bill 97, the Plan to Protect Ontario Act (Budget Measures), 2026, has introduced a comprehensive exclusion of records pertaining to cabinet ministers, parliamentary assistants, and their respective offices from the scope of freedom of information laws. This legislative shift effectively terminates existing appeals for documents stored in non-governmental cloud services, such as Google Docs, provided they originate from these excluded offices. Such a transition is particularly salient given the documented utilization of personal electronic devices and private email accounts by the Premier and senior staff—a practice previously highlighted by the Auditor General during investigations into Greenbelt land swaps.

隨同第 97 號法案即《2026 年保護安大略計劃法（預算措施）》的頒佈，內閣部長、國會助理及其相關辦公室的記錄被全面排除在資訊自由法的適用範圍之外。這項立法轉變實際上終止了所有針對儲存在非政府雲端服務（如 Google Docs）之文件的現有申訴，前提是該文件源自這些被排除的辦公室。鑑於有記錄顯示省長與高級職員使用個人電子設備及私人電子郵件帳號，這一轉變顯得尤為突出——審計總長先前在調查綠帶土地交換案時已重點指出此做法。

Beyond the provincial executive, the amendments extend to municipal and local governance, introducing a mechanism whereby agencies may mandate specific wording for requests. Should a requester decline these modifications, the government retains the authority to unilaterally categorize the request as abandoned. Furthermore, the statutory timeframe for agency responses has been extended from 30 to 60 days, potentially facilitating protracted delays in data retrieval. The Information and Privacy Commissioner has posited that the exclusion of these officials increases the probability of privacy breaches and cyber-security vulnerabilities, as government business conducted on personal devices may bypass official record-retention protocols. While the administration maintains that the Auditor General and Integrity Commissioner retain oversight access, critics argue that the lack of Information Commissioner review creates a precedent for unprecedented opacity regarding lobbying and decision-making processes.

除省級行政機關外，修訂範圍亦延伸至市級與地方治理，引入了一種機制，允許機構要求申請資訊時必須使用特定措辭。若申請人拒絕此修改，政府保留單方面將該請求視為放棄的權限。此外，機構回應的法定時間從 30 天延長至 60 天，可能導致數據檢索的嚴重延遲。資訊與隱私專員認為，將這些官員排除在外會增加隱私洩漏與網絡安全漏洞的可能性，因為在個人設備上處理的政府業務可能會繞過官方的記錄保存協定。儘管政府堅持審計總長與誠信專員仍保有監管查閱權，但批評者認為，缺乏資訊專員的審查，將為遊說與決策過程創造前所未有的不透明先例。

Ontario's transparency regime has transitioned toward a model of restricted access for executive records and more stringent, potentially obstructive, procedural requirements for municipal information requests.

安大略省的透明度制度已轉向一種模式：限制查閱行政記錄，並對市級資訊請求設定更嚴格、且可能具有阻礙性的程序要求。