Doug Ford’s chief of staff ‘missing’ months of government texts after phone was ‘reset’
A top aide to Ontario Premier Doug Ford is facing questions about how he manages sensitive government records after he traded in his cellphone without fully backing it up, Global News can reveal, meaning months of text messages related to official government business are now considered “missing.”
The government has been engaged in a months-long freedom of information appeal with Global News over text conversations between Ford’s chief of staff Patrick Sackville and Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster.
Records from Verster show intermittent text messages in the first half of 2023 between the two officials, spanning everything from advice to government to holiday greetings and emojis.
While Verster had submitted his side of the digital conversations, as part of a freedom of information request, Sackville had no records of those same text messages.
Government lawyers later acknowledged that Sackville had been using his personal iPhone to communicate with Verster in text messages which Metrolinx’s privacy officials considered sensitive.
That phone, according to government lawyers, was not adequately backed up by Sackville and was traded in during December 2023 before being “reset” by a third-party vendor.
As a result, months’ worth of texts — at least some of which represent government records — are now considered to be “missing data” and cannot be retrieved, according to the province.
“When Mr. Sackville changed his old device to a new one, the text messages stored physically in his old phone were not transferred over to the new because they were not on Mr. Sackville’s iCloud account but rather, physically on the old phone,” the government said in its submissions to the Information and Privacy Commissioner.
“Mr. Sackville advises
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