Calgary city councillor Landon Johnston has sent a letter to the province asking for a municipal inspection into the current council’s use of in-camera sessions.

It’s the latest salvo in the fallout from the Ward 14 councillor’s leak of confidential budget information to local media.

Last week, Coun. Johnston admitted to leaking confidential City of Calgary four-year budget documents to local media. That led to a special meeting of council earlier this week where councillors received legal advice from the city solicitor on how the situation could be handled.

Johnston, who to date has voted against all motions to move in-camera, asked the province to review Calgary’s closed session record and to make changes to the Municipal Government Act to limit further what discussions can be held behind closed doors.

In the letter, Johnston acknowledged his breach of confidentiality.

“I’m not asking the Province to excuse my conduct, to prejudge any municipal process, or to referee a political dispute,” Johnston wrote.

“I am asking because this controversy has exposed a broader structural problem: Alberta’s open meeting rules are not clear or narrow enough when ordinary policy advice and public financial choices are involved.”

Johnston cited LiveWire Calgary’s June 11 reporting on the frequency with which Calgary city council entered closed sessions. In his letter he said that the provision most frequently used to move ordinary council business to in-camera, is “Advice from officials.”

“In my view, it has become the most abused access-to-information exception when translated into the municipal closed-meeting context.”

Johnston wants the period from 2017 to the present to be assessed for the “frequency and duration of closed sessions” and the statutory provisions used to justify them.

“The review should also examine the recurring history of confidential or non-public municipal information reaching the media, subsequent calls for investigations, and repeated disputes over what councillors may discuss once information is already in the public domain,” Johnston wrote.

Already referred to the Municipal Affairs Minister and Privacy Commissioner

Calgary’s special meeting of council last week resulted in engaging the Municipal Affairs Minister and the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner to ask how to handle the situation.

That’s given the lack of a current code of conduct for elected officials, which the province stripped from municipalities in 2025 over fears it was being wielded for political reasons.

Late Thursday, the province provided a brief response.

“Our office has received a letter from Councillor Landon Johnston detailing concerns related to municipal transparency,” read the email response.

“We also understand that we should be expecting another letter from Calgary City Council, we’ll review both these letters and determine whether any further action is required.”

Earlier this week, Mayor Jeromy Farkas said he was confident that the province was actively looking at the confidentiality breach.

“I’m sure it will be taken seriously. I know that they’re aware of it as well, given that it was identified that the councillor’s staff had been spotted traveling abroad with the premier,” Farkas said.

“So, I know that they certainly had the opportunity to be able to speak about it. So again, it just comes down to the fact that nobody in this province should be above the law; even if you’re an elected official, you need to respect people’s private information.”

Farkas also said that he’s been pushing council hard on the amount of time spent in closed session. He said he believes they’re already leading one of the most transparent budget processes across Canada.

“I recently brought a notice of motion, which Councillor Johnston himself refused to participate in, which would call for stricter requirements for reporting on that,” he said.

“I get that this is an important issue, but when the police come to me and say that they need to be able to share protected information and confidence that otherwise could jeopardize their ability to conduct needed public safety and law enforcement actions, I listen to them. When individual staff might be potentially disclosed; their names, their home addresses, specific positions, when that is at risk, I take that very seriously.”

Johnston’s letter asks for MGA changes that include making financial business public by default, including projected tax rates, scenarios, service level choices, reserve forecasts, and the like.

It also calls for the removal of “advice from officials” as a provision for protecting information, and to only protect contract negotiations or bargaining positions narrowly.