The Ford government is holding a rare late-night session at Queen’s Park as it attempts to pass its omnibus budget bill, which includes controversial changes to freedom of information (FOI) laws.A normal legislative process sees bills go to committee, where affected groups and members of the public have a chance to weigh in, and committee members from the government and opposition can propose and debate amendments.But government house leader Steve Clark indicated last week they would bypass all of that for the budget bill that includes changes to the province’s conservation authorities, caps resale ticket prices, and most controversially, changes FOI laws.The current budget bill has been sitting for several weeks at the committee stage with no movement.The retroactive FOI law would shield Ford and cabinet members — along with their offices — from public access to documents, with Ford admitting that part of the rationale is to kill media requests to obtain his cellphone records.The opposition Ontario NDP accused the government of using the late-night session to limit debate in order to rush through controversial changes to the province’s transparency and accountability rules.“These changes are about one thing: giving Doug Ford more power to hide their shady dealings from the public, the media and from anyone trying to get answers,” said NDP Leader Marit Stiles in a statement.“New Democrats will stay up for as long as it takes to stop this bill from being rammed through and fight to protect people’s right to transparency about the decisions that impact their lives.”The government has fast-tracked several pieces of legislation over the past year or so, including laws to ban speed cameras, close supervised consumption sites and boost the education minister’s powers, as well as a law known as Bill 5 that allows the government to suspend municipal and provincial laws in the name of mining or economic development.With limited debate expected in the sparsely populated legislative assembly, the bill could pass third reading at some point overnight, which would pave the way for it to become law as early as Thursday.Files from The Canadian Press were used in this report