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You may recall that I submitted a FOIA request to the Ontario government in order to obtain documents and specific emails pertaining to the Freedom Convoy that took place in 2022.

The Freedom Convoy was easily one of the biggest moments in Canadian history, not just because of the courage and heart that was on display by tens of thousands of Canadians, but because of how foul and off-base the government and mainstream media response was.

Given the complete lack of transparency and honesty on the part of government during and after the Convoy, and their obvious agenda to mislead the Canadian public, I decided going after documents could be a way to break open this story further.

Our Case

In April 2022 I sent in a FOIA request to the Solicitor General’s office in Ontario that is still being dodged to this day. I wrote an entire piece about this case and the process so far, you can read it below.

But for now just note that the government filed for an extension on our case, that deadline passed 6 months ago, and they are still dodging us today.

This led to me submit an official complaint to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario.

Today I want to update you on what’s happened since.

I got a letter from the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario stating they received and began processing my complaint. It is in the stage of “inquiry.”

Below is part of the letter so you can read it for yourself. Much of this is jargon outlining how the FOI Act works, but we have already established that the government has gone dark after issuing notice we would receive documents.

The obvious shocking part of this is seen in screenshot one, where you can see my official given name is “Joseph”… I’ve been acting under the alias of Joe all this time, sorry for the deception.

The long and short of the letter is:

They acknowledge my complaint, re-state portions of the FOI Act that illustrate the Solicitor General’s office is in the wrong here, and are attempting to push the situation along.

If the Solicitor General’s office doesn’t provide me with what they promised, an acting-adjudicator will work to move things along. If that doesn’t work, I seek my own council and sue.

I expect to finally hear back from my case worker fairly soon as a result of this, but suspect they will continue to dodge to some extent or claim that documents will need to be redacted. At that point, we may still pursue the option to sue to obtain what the public should have access to.

Enough is enough. Democracy is only as good as people are informed. When governments lie and refuse to be transparent with the public, the public cannot make meaningful decisions. Therefore, democracy doesn’t exist.

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A full run down of this entire FOIA case is below.

The Pulse

Freedom Convoy: We May Have To Sue The Ontario Gov't To Get Our Unsent FOIA Documents

Our team spent 25 days in Ottawa during the Freedom Convoy and got to see first hand the disparity between what was presented in mainstream media about the event and what was actually happening on the ground. This, like many other moments in the last few years, can feel frustrating as you have millions of people believing something that simply isn't true…

Read more

2 months ago · 26 likes · 15 comments · Joe Martino