The Ontario government has spent slightly more than $2.4 million in taxpayer dollars on a seven-year court battle with the parents of autistic children, Attorney General Michael Bryant said Tuesday as he acceded to a court order that the figure be released.

In a ruling Monday, the Superior Court of Justice refused to allow the province to keep secret how much it has spent fighting a group of parents who sued the government over its refusal to fund intensive behavioural intervention therapy for autistic children older than six.

Bryant said the total — $2,414,431 — covers more than seven years of legal fees and includes $620,000 for various costs like court transcripts, and almost $1.8 million for the salaries of government lawyers who helped in the fight.

"It reflects the time that those lawyers spent on those files and extrapolating [a total] from their salary," Bryant said in an interview.

"Obviously they wouldn't work on just that particular case every day of the week and every hour of the day, so if you add up all the time they spent on the case, [it's $1.8 million]."

The government was first asked about its legal costs in 2004 when New Democrat critic Shelley Martel sought the total through requests under the province's Freedom of Information law.

The government fought that disclosure, but Martel continued to argue that the legal costs were a matter of public interest, because they would reveal how much money the government wasted on lawyers when it could have simply paid for the costly therapy.

"For over three years now they have stonewalled me; they have refused my requests to have this information released," Martel said.

"My sense is the reason the government [appealed] is because the amount of money here is quite significant and they [didn't] want the public to know."

Martel added that the amount of money the government spent fighting the case would have funded treatment for 50 autistic children for a year.

Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian, who ruled earlier this year that the government should release the total, said she was "truly delighted" by the Superior Court ruling and the decision not to appeal.

"It says government secrecy cannot be the norm," Cavoukian said.

"For us it's such a big win because what it says is aggregate information about what the government spends to bring forward certain [legal] actions, that's public information."

Crown lawyers had argued the government's legal bills were covered by solicitor-client privilege and shouldn't be disclosed.