Ontario’s transparency watchdog is urging the province to reconsider its freedom of information clampdown, saying she was not consulted before the sweeping changes were announced.

Information and Privacy Commissioner Patricia Kosseim said nobody in Premier Doug Ford’s government spoke with her or her team before unveiling a plan to offer politicians and their staff near blanket immunity from transparency rules.

“They did not consult us on these changes, unfortunately,” she told Global News in an interview.

“This is our enabling legislation and, as the commissioner responsible for administering the act, pre-consultation on significant changes such as these, I think would have been to everybody’s benefit.”

The changes unveiled by Stephen Crawford, the minister for public and business service delivery and procurement, will exclude the premier, his cabinet, parliamentary assistants and all their staff from freedom of information rules.

The move will likely void a recent legal defeat for the government in which an Ontario court ordered Premier Ford to hand over his personal phone, which he uses to conduct government business.

The commissioner has worried that excluding those records — rather than exempting them like other provinces do — will make it hard to work out if staff are leaving government with sensitive records or if they’re vulnerable to cyber attacks.

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Kosseim said it would be “premature” to ask if her office was considering legal action to stop the government’s changes, but implored the province to change course.

“We haven’t seen a proposal, a legislative bill. I think we would have to study the bill,” she said, pointing out the changes don’t only impact her office.

“It’s important to speak out while there’s still time, before the bill is tabled in a hope that we might urge the government to reconsider these proposals before the ink is dry on the bill. That’s why we’re speaking out now. But really, once we see the bill, then we will take a very sober, measured look at the actual wording.”

Ford said on Monday that only journalists and his critics in the legislature care about the changes he is making to transparency laws.

“It’s only controversial with two groups: the media and with the opposition,” he said. “Folks, this is nothing new; we aren’t pulling a rabbit out of our hat.”

Ontario Liberal interim leader John Fraser, however, said the transparency crackdown was something that mattered to people away from the legislature because it affects oversight of the government they elected.

“It’s not inside baseball; we need those laws,” he told reporters on Monday.

“We have those laws to protect our democracy, to make sure people are informed, that they can make great decisions about what they do at election time. It’s their money. The woman who’s working at Tim Hortons for 20 bucks an hour — she pays taxes, she should know.”

Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles accused the government of changing the law to keep the premier’s cellphone calls and texts secret.

“This government is focused on hiding the premier’s cell phone records,” she said. “And we know that there must be something pretty damning in those records if they’re taking these kinds of measures to hide those cell phone records.”

Ford and his cabinet ministers have repeatedly said changing the rules brings them inline with other parts of the country and will protect cabinet conversations.

That’s something the information and privacy commissioner has suggested is not entirely accurate.

Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner also said the argument doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

“There are rules in place already that protect cabinet confidentiality, individual confidentiality,” he said. “The bottom line is people of Ontario want an honest government. They want a government who’s going to be transparent with them about how they make decisions. The Premier doesn’t want that.”

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