Amid drug scandal, Toronto officials keep secret hundreds of emails

The Toronto Sun is appealing a decision by the City of Toronto to withhold hundreds of emails sent by staff members of beleaguered Mayor Rob Ford.

The paper requested copies of emails sent and received by Ford’s former senior staffers around the time the mayor’s crack video scandal broke last year.

From the Sun:

The city’s access and privacy division relied on 10 different clauses contained in access laws to sever the information from the request.

Those clauses were drawn from the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (MFIPPA) and the City of Toronto Act and included correspondence with constituents and records subject to solicitor-client privilege.

“Records of a political nature belonging to the Mayor have also been removed as this type of record falls outside the scope of the act,” city officials stated in the decision letter granting partial access to the records.

Meanwhile, reporters from the Sun have used 7,000 pages of released emails to shed light on the inner workings of the mayor’s o ffice. Read that story here.