Housing Minister Out and the Greenbelt Lives to See Another Day
Housing Minister Out and the Greenbelt Lives to See Another Day
Surprising announcement from Premier Doug Ford
Surprising announcement from Premier Doug Ford
ONTARIO, Canada — On the heels of Housing Minister Steven Clark’s resignation on Monday, Premier Doug Ford announced this morning that he has decided to accept the 14th recommendation of the Auditor General’s report, to reconsider the decision to change the greenbelt boundaries.
He made the announcement at Queens Park today, taking no questions after delivering his remarks.
How did we get here?
The Ontario Greenbelt, established in 2005, is the largest of its kind in the world. It is comprised of 2 million acres of protected farmland, forests, wetlands, rivers and lakes. The proposed Greenbelt plan sought to open a collectively 810,000-hectare area of land, of which much is prime agricultural land.
The provincial government has been mired in disrepute this year over the decision to open the Greenbelt to housing development. What’s more, their process of site selection was recently revealed to have been heavily influenced by the same developers who already own most of the land that was opened up to development last November. In fact, many developer acquisitions of protected Greenbelt lands all happened in the past few years — and in some cases, weeks — before the proposal for development was announced.
What have people said about this?
A public consultation was conducted last December to an overwhelmingly negative reception, which the government ignored and proceeded with their plan unabated.
Environmental advocacy groups have long voiced their disagreement to the plan, resulting in a backtrack in Caledon, Ontario just last week.
Opposition leaders from the NDP and Liberal parties have also long joined the public objection, themselves calling for investigations by the Auditor General (AG) and the Ontario Office of the Integrity Commissioner (OIC).
First Nations leaders have also voiced their discontent with the lack of proper consultation on what is supposed to be shared treaty land.
What do we know so far?
AG Bonnie Lysyk investigated and published a scathing 95 page report early last month that found that “The process was biased in favour of certain developers and landowners who had timely access to the housing minister’s chief of staff.” Collectively, the developers who recently acquired this land and lobbied the provincial government to open it up to housing development, would see a more than $8 billion dollar enrichment as a result of the development proposal.
AG Lysyk presented 15 recommendations, 14 of which were previously accepted by Premier Ford and Minister Clark. The one ignored recommendation was the “Re-evaluation of the 2022 Decision to Change the Greenbelt Boundaries.”
An investigation by the OIC, (another AG recommendation), more recently found that “Minister Clark’s lack of oversight led to some developers being alerted to a potential change in the government’s position on the Greenbelt, resulting in their private interests being furthered improperly.” Minister Clark’s Chief of Staff, Ryan Amato, tendered his resignation last month in response to the report. At the time, no sanctions were levied against Minister Clark himself.
Calling in the Mounties
At present, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is conducting their own assessment to determine whether an investigation into potential criminal activity would be needed. The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) referred the file to the RCMP last month in an effort to avoid “any perceived conflict of interest.” At stake? Potential investigations into racketeering.
The Repeal
This morning at the press conference, Premier Ford confirmed that he had accepted Minister Clark’s resignation on Monday. He went on to share that he had decided to repeal the decision to change the Greenbelt boundaries. Without the Minister and Chief of Staff there to deliver on the controversial plans they spearheaded, and amidst considerable backlash in the opposition and general public, the Premier concluded that the logical next step would be to go back to the drawing board and convene the ministries and stakeholders identified in the Auditor-General’s recommendation.
Deputy Housing Minister Martha Greenberg will take on leadership of the file and the Premier reiterated that his government remains determined to deliver on its 1.5 million home promise.
There was no further comment from the Premier or his office.
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