Energy Minister Chris Stockwell said the public has no right to know how a private company conducts its business.

"Frankly, if you are going to attract industries into the province of Ontario to produce generating power, it seems to me that you would be at a very serious disadvantage if all of their financial information for everything they do in the world would become FOI-able for all their competition to access sensitive information," he said.
—Richard Brennan, "Watchdog sounds warning on hydro," The Toronto Star, June 22, 2002

On Dec. 2, 1996—nine days before the FDA advisory committee would meet to consider Rezulin's approval—Fleming e-mailed to Martin an encrypted copy of Gueriguian's medical review. That same day, Fleming wrote in a separate e-mail to colleagues that Lumpkin had told him Gueriguian's review "is not FOIable." By this, Fleming suggested the document would be withheld from public view because consumers, the news media or others could not obtain it under the Freedom of Information Act.
—David Willman, "Study: New documents shows Warner-Lambert trivialized liver toxicity of diabetes pill Rezulin while seeking federal approval," Los Angeles Times, March 11, 2001

The idea was to work with the database, and the only database I could get was a database that was FOI-able.
—Milton Packer, "Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Committee, 86th meeting," Congressional Hearing Transcripts, October 22, 1998