Ford Government Accused of Hiding Transparency Requests on Microsoft Teams

Ontario's Ford government has been accused of attempting to cover up transparency requests after it was revealed that internal messages sent within the province on Microsoft Teams are automatically deleted after 30 days.

The policy, obtained through freedom of information laws, shows that the only way to keep these conversations longer than a month is by taking a screenshot or copying them into a text document. When Global News confirmed this with government policies, it found that 'Microsoft Teams chat messages are automatically deleted after 30 calendar days,' and 'after 30 calendar days, Teams chat messages cannot be retrieved.'

According to the source, in May of this year, weeks after the Ford government narrowed the scope of transparency laws in Ontario, civil servants were instructed to pause their work on freedom of information requests. This order was communicated through a Microsoft Teams group chat, not through an official email or memo.

Ontario NDP MPP Chris Glover suggested that the government had deliberately used this platform to arrange the pause 'in hopes it wouldn’t be made public.'