10 key take-aways from the auditor general’s Greenbelt report

What went wrong in the Ontario government’s decision to remove 15 parcels of land from Greenbelt protection to build housing?

Thestar.com
Aug. 10, 2023
Rob Ferguson

What went wrong in the Ontario government’s decision to remove 15 parcels of land from Greenbelt protection to build housing?

Some highlights from auditor general Bonnie Lysyk’s 93-page Special Report on Changes to the Greenbelt:

Developers stand to make an estimated $8.28 billion on 7,400 acres of environmentally sensitive land removed from the Greenbelt to make way for housing.

Lysyk determined the land is not needed to meet the government’s home-building targets because there is plenty of other land already available.

Fourteen of the 15 parcels of land being taken out of the Greenbelt were chosen by Ryan Amato, chief of staff to Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark, largely bypassing input and concerns from civil servants and land use experts.

“We found that how the land sites were selected was not transparent, fair, objective or fully informed,” Lysyk wrote.

Amato received envelopes from developers at the building industry dinner recommending which areas be removed from the Greenbelt. He kept them in his office.

Clark and Premier Doug Ford maintain they did not know Amato was the key player in choosing lands to be exempted. Opposition parties don’t believe them.

While Ford says he won’t heed the auditor’s push to reconsider the Greenbelt land decisions based on a process that was “wrong,” he has agreed to implement several recommendations from the auditor to prevent similar attempts to sideline involvement from bureaucrats and experts.

They are as follows:

• A new system to ensure materials received from third parties (such as envelopes from developers) are recorded and shared with senior civil servants.
• Ontario’s integrity commissioner J. David Wake should determine whether Amato “acted contrary to the requirements of the Public Service of Ontario Act with respect to his liaisons with land developers.”
• New procedures are needed to ensure deputy ministers flag concerns to the secretary of cabinet -- the top civil servant in charge of deputy ministers -- when submissions to cabinet arise from circumstances where civil servants “have not been able to fully conduct unfettered work.”
• An “independent and comprehensive review” of the Lobbyists Registration Act, the Members’ Integrity Act and the Public Service of Ontario Act “to strengthen lobbyist registration and regulatory oversight powers of the Office of the Integrity Commissioner.”
• Additional confidentiality agreements for civil servants, used in the land selection process in question and which precluded them from discussing the repercussions of Greenbelt changes more widely, should be limited because bureaucrats already take an oath of secrecy.
• “We need to make some changes. I respect that,” said Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark.