Key takeaways
- On September 25, CTV News reported that Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner is seeing rising non-compliance with its legal orders, including a Ministry of Labour order to answer nine freedom-of-information requests about the Skills Development Fund by August 21 that still has no response.
- The IPC told CTV it cannot take government institutions to court to enforce its FOI orders, unlike its counterparts in other provinces. In British Columbia, the commissioner can file an order with the Supreme Court and have it enforced as a judgment (FIPPA s. 59.01).
- Ontario’s backstop is FIPPA s. 61(1)(f): wilfully failing to comply with a Commissioner’s order is an offence, but prosecution requires the Attorney General’s consent and the maximum fine is $5,000.
What CTV reported
On September 25, 2026, CTV News Toronto reported that Ontario’s transparency watchdog is warning the government is dodging its orders more frequently. A spokesperson for the Information and Privacy Commissioner told CTV: “Recently and very unfortunately, our office has been seeing an increase of institutions’ non-compliance with our orders compared to historic trends.”
The flashpoint is concrete. Ontario’s Ministry of Labour was ordered to respond by August 21 to nine freedom of information requests, filed by CTV News in September 2025, about the operation of the multi-billion-dollar Skills Development Fund. The ministry has not responded. That is the same fund where Ontario’s auditor general found administration that was “not fair, transparent, or accountable,” and where reporting revealed over $100 million went to clients of a lobbyist who managed the premier’s campaign, plus $10 million to train workers at an adult entertainment club.
The IPC’s public position is the striking part. The watchdog told CTV it is powerless to stop the evasion of its legal orders because, unlike in other provinces, it cannot take government agencies to court. The government’s unsigned response: “The government will continue to comply with our obligations under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.”
Notice the asymmetry. An institution that dislikes an IPC order can seek judicial review of it in court. Governments have done exactly that, all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. But the IPC has no equivalent door into the courtroom to make an institution obey an order it has simply decided to ignore.
What FIPPA actually gives the watchdog
The IPC’s one statutory backstop is FIPPA’s offence provision. Section 61(1)(f) of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act makes it an offence for any person to wilfully fail to comply with an order of the Commissioner. The penalty on conviction is a fine of up to $5,000, and s. 61(3) says a prosecution under that clause cannot begin without the consent of the Attorney General.
Read that slowly as a practitioner. The enforcement path for an ignored order is: the watchdog identifies wilful non-compliance, then asks the Attorney General, a member of the same government that is ignoring the order, for permission to prosecute, and the ceiling is a $5,000 fine against a provincial ministry. That is not a deterrent. It is a formality.
How Ontario compares
The IPC’s “unlike in other provinces” claim checks out. Here is the enforcement architecture across four regimes:
| Regulator | Order-making power | Court enforcement of the order | Fines or penalties |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ontario IPC (FIPPA) | Yes, binding orders | None. No statutory route to file an order with a court. | Offence under s. 61(1)(f) only: up to $5,000, needs AG consent |
| BC OIPC (BC FIPPA) | Yes, binding orders | Yes. S. 59.01 lets the commissioner file a certified copy of an order with the Supreme Court; it then has the force of a court judgment | Court enforcement as a judgment |
| Quebec CAI (Law 25) | Yes, binding orders | Yes, through court processes | Administrative monetary penalties for non-compliance |
| Federal OPC (PIPEDA) | No, ombudsman model with non-binding findings | The complainant, not the Commissioner, applies to Federal Court for a hearing | Federal Court can award damages to the individual |
Ontario is the outlier on both axes: it issues binding orders like BC and Quebec, but enforces them like nobody, relying on an offence provision that requires the government’s own lawyer to agree to prosecute.
Watch the Quebec side in practice. I track published CAI enforcement actions weekly in the Law 25 enforcement tracker: orders, decisions, and fines, each linked to its official source.
Why this matters for privacy and FOI teams
This story lands on top of a second front. The spring 2026 budget brought changes to Ontario’s FOI law letting the premier and cabinet ministers keep office records secret, and Democracy Watch is in court challenging those changes. A watchdog whose orders are being ignored, plus a statute being narrowed to exempt the premier’s office, is a compounding pattern. If you file FOI requests in Ontario, or you advise clients who do, plan for both: narrower coverage and slower compliance.
Enforcement design is the whole game. Privacy programs spend enormous effort on what the rules say. This story is about what happens after the rules are broken. A regulator’s order without a self-executing enforcement path is a request with letterhead. When you assess regulatory risk across provinces, the backstop matters as much as the rule: an Ontario FIPPA order, a BC FIPPA order, and a Law 25 order are not the same instrument, even though all three are called orders.
The practitioner lesson is narrower than it looks. Do not treat an IPC order as the end of a matter in Ontario. If you are the requester, your leverage after a non-compliant institution is publicity and the offence provision, and the offence provision needs the Attorney General’s consent. If you are the institution’s privacy office, the honest advice to leadership is the opposite: an ignored order does not expire, it accumulates, and the reputational cost is doing the enforcement work the statute will not.
The actionable takeaway
Actionable takeaway: This week, pull your province’s enforcement ladder into one page: the regulator, what orders it can make, how those orders get enforced, and who holds the pen on penalties. For Ontario, that page now reads: binding order, no court-filing route, s. 61(1)(f) offence needing AG consent. Know where your regulator’s teeth actually are before you need them.