Lawyers for the Ontario government and Doug Ford say a landmark decision from the province’s transparency watchdog ordering the premier to potentially release calls on his personal cellphone is a “make-work project” that entertained irrelevant and unreliable evidence.

On Wednesday, a panel of three Ontario judges heard a request by the provincial government for a judicial review of an Information and Privacy Commission decision handed down last year.

Teams arguing for the records to be given over to government staff for review and release said that allowing the premier to “shield” his communications from transparency by using his personal phone would “undermine” democracy in the province.

At the tail end of 2024, the IPC issued two rulings siding with freedom of information requests

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