Calgary Police: Transparency Crisis Deepens Amid FOIP Failures

CALGARY, AB — Alberta's public sector sits at the center of a mounting transparency crisis as local governments and provincial departments grapple with widespread failures to honor freedom of information laws—failures that have triggered formal orders, budget scrambles, and questions about who's hiding what.

The friction boils down to this: Alberta overhauled its entire information access system last June, splitting the old FOIP Act into two separate laws, yet compliance remains a disaster. In May 2025, Information and Privacy Commissioner Diane McLeod dropped a bombshell report finding 27 provincial departments wrongfully denying access requests through secret internal procedures. Fast-forward to today, and the Calgary Police Service is still catching flak for backlogs so severe that McLeod issued three separate orders—two in January 2026 alone—demanding CPS finally respond to delayed requests.

The Money Behind the Mess

CPS now operates on a $613 million net budget for 2026, up from $541 million the year prior. Inside that $59 million adjustment package: four new disclosure analysts, an intake coordinator, and an administrative assistant—emergency hires meant to dig the force out of a records backlog that's become a political liability. The irony? Part of that budget crunch stems from the provincial government yanking $28 million in automated traffic fine revenue, forcing CPS to absorb the hit while simultaneously staffing up its transparency division.

The new laws—the Access to Information Act and the Protection of Privacy Act, both in force since June 11, 2025—now carry teeth. Misuse of personal information can cost individuals up to $125,000 and organizations $750,000. But enforcement is one thing. Compliance is another.

The Players and Their Friction

Premier Danielle Smith's government introduced the reforms, yet her own departments were the ones flagged for systemic non-compliance just months after the laws took effect. NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi has hammered the UCP over alleged corruption in health contracts—the kind of mess that often involves convenient redactions and slow-walked records requests. Former UCP MLA Peter Guthrie and conservative operative Cameron Davies both publicly torched the government's transparency record in early 2025, with Guthrie resigning from cabinet over procurement concerns weeks after AHS CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos was fired amid allegations of political interference.

McLeod's May report didn't just ding departments for procedural slip-ups. It exposed a pattern: internal policies designed to deny access, not facilitate it. That finding came after a two-year investigation sparked partly by a Globe and Mail exposé on Canada's broken FOIP systems.

What Happens Next

The private sector isn't off the hook. Alberta launched a public survey on February 1 seeking input on modernizing the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), the province's private-sector privacy law. A judge ruled parts of it unconstitutional last May, and a legislative committee wrapped its PIPA review in February 2025. Material amendments are expected this year.

For Calgarians, the practical effect is straightforward: If you file an access request with CPS or a provincial department, you're still navigating a system that operates more like a maze than a public service. The new staffing and budgets are supposed to fix that. Whether they actually will depends on whether the culture of denial McLeod documented has really changed—or just learned to process paperwork faster.