Kingston’s official announcements are hidden after 2 years

Published Nov 12, 2025, edited Nov 17, 2025

The City of Kingston’s news section posts official announcements from the City:

These updates are sometimes always published to the City’s social media pages with a link back to the post:

Clicking the link in that Facebook post:

https://www.cityofkingston.ca/city-hall/kingston-awards/access-awards

now leads to a “Page Not Found” error, which says the reason could be due to the new website or an incorrect web address:

The broken link has nothing to do with the launch of a “new website” or an incorrect address – it is intentional based on internal policy.

Kingston only allows residents to access less than 2 years of official announcements before the posts are either are hidden or removed. As of November 12, 2025, the oldest post available was from January 19, 2024:

Open Council commentary

Municipalities must prioritize accountability and transparency. When official announcements are removed from public view after 1 year, it undermines that responsibility.

This practice is actively detrimental to government transparency:

Deceptive: The “Page Not Found” error misleads the public. The City is following a deliberately policy of removing the public record.
Accountability: When links from the City’s social media posts are intentionally broken, residents are blocked from reviewing past programs or statements. This makes it more difficult to hold the City accountable for its promises.
Research: Deleting these primary-source announcements makes it more difficult for citizens, journalists, and researchers to track local issues. A permanent, public archive is a fundamental component of open government.

The Kingston Police Service Board should adopt Open Government principles and maintain a permanent, complete, searchable public archive of past board meetings is a minimal-cost, high-value way to provide transparency in line with its records retention schedule policy as outlined by the Ontario Municipal Act, 2001.

Topics: Transparency