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Integrity commissioner, auditor to probe Doug Ford’s Greenbelt development plan

Two provincial watchdog agencies are investigating the Ford government’s controversial decision to open parts of the Greenbelt for housing development amid concerns developers were secretly tipped in advance.

Thestar.com
Jan. 19, 2023
Rob Ferguson

“Something smells fishy here and Ontarians deserve answers,” incoming New Democrat leader Marit Stiles said Wednesday after the offices of the integrity commissioner and auditor general separately confirmed they will take a closer look.

The decisions to investigate follow complaints from opposition parties to both agencies in recent weeks, and reporting by the Toronto Star and the Narwhal, which found eight of the 15 areas of the Greenbelt where development will soon be allowed have been purchased since Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives were elected in 2018.

Stiles said she was concerned about the “curious timing of recent purchases of Greenbelt land by powerful landowners with donor and political ties to the Ontario PC Party” despite previous assurances from Ford that more Greenbelt lands would not be opened up.
The office of integrity commissioner J. David Wake said Wednesday there are “reasonable and probable grounds” for a probe based on information provided by Stiles and the NDP, including media reports.

Stiles had called for an investigation into whether Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark contravened the Members’ Integrity Act with his November announcement allowing development on parts of the Greenbelt.

At the time, Clark repeatedly insisted proper procedures were followed but refused to say no when asked repeatedly if developers were tipped to the opening of Greenbelt lands for housing. The next day he insisted no tips were provided. Ford has also denied developers were given advance notice.

“There are serious unanswered questions about how certain Conservative-connected land speculators knew to buy the parcels in question -- some of these transactions occurring mere months before the government’s announcement,” Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said Wednesday.
Wake rejected a request from Schreiner to investigate Premier Doug Ford as well, saying the information the Greens supplied did not meet the threshold.

As part of Ford’s push to build 1.5 million new homes in the next decade, the government is opening 7,400 acres of protected Greenbelt land to housing construction. In exchange, 9,400 acres will be added in other areas of the two-million-acre Greenbelt of farms, wetlands and other ecologically sensitive parcels.

New Democrats also joined with the Liberals and Greens earlier this month to ask auditor general Bonnie Lysyk for a value-for-money audit of the financial and environmental implications relating to the government’s decisions to open more of the Greenbelt as well as the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve.

In their plea to Lysyk, they noted Duffins Rouge had easements representing “a multibillion-dollar investment in Ontario’s natural and agricultural systems by the people of Ontario, who gave up enormous profits when the Ontario government sold these lands at discounted prices on the condition that they forever remain farmland.”

Those profits will now go to private landowners “with no compensation to the public,” they added.

Lysyk said Wednesday her office has received “considerable correspondence” on the Greenbelt concerns in addition to the push from opposition parties.

“My office will be conducting certain audit work on this issue commencing within the next few weeks,” Lysyk added, declining to provide further details but noting the government has been contacted.

Clark’s office said the government will “fully co-operate and work with the auditor general by providing further detail on our plan to build more than 50,000 new homes while growing the overall size of the Greenbelt by approximately 2,000 acres.”

“To help solve Ontario’s housing crisis, we need homes to be built quickly,” added the statement from Clark spokesperson Victoria Podbielski. “If these projects do not move forward within the next two years, then these lands will be returned to the Greenbelt.”

Interim Liberal leader John Fraser applauded the investigations.

“Why would someone spend tens of millions of dollars to purchase land they can do virtually nothing with? Because weeks later, you could,” he said in a statement.

“Ontarians have a right to know if the government gave their friends advance notice of their plans to crack open the Greenbelt.”