Ontario Premier Doug Ford arrives at a press conference in Mississauga, Ont., on Aug. 11.Cole Burston/The Canadian Press
Senior political staffers at Queen’s Park are being reminded in a memo from their superiors to follow conflict-of-interest rules after an Auditor-General’s report last week concluded that the government’s removal of lands from the protected Greenbelt favoured certain developers.
The Premier’s Office sent a copy of the memo, signed by Premier Doug Ford’s chief of staff, Patrick Sackville, and Ontario’s top civil servant, Secretary of the Cabinet Michelle DiEmanuele, to reporters on Monday.
Addressed to the chiefs of staff for members of cabinet and to deputy ministers, the memo reminds them to follow the Public Service of Ontario Act, which includes “rules regarding conflict of interest and political activity” and requires public servants to disclose any actual or potential conflicts of interest. It says that a comprehensive response to the auditor’s report is being prepared, with a working group to oversee its implementation.
The memo is an attempt to address a number of the recommendations made by Auditor-General Bonnie Lysyk, who issued a 93-page report last week declaring that the Greenbelt decision was “biased” and “seriously flawed” and lacked the necessary environmental and financial analysis. The government has said it accepts all but one of her recommendations – her centrepiece call for the Greenbelt decision itself to be revisited.
Monday’s brief memo warns ministers’ chiefs of staff that proposals submitted to cabinet or its committees must “provide accurate and complete information,” including the outlining of options and risks, and show that consultation, including with Indigenous leaders, has been done.
Ms. Lysyk had said the Greenbelt proposal put before cabinet last year was missing vital details about how the land was largely chosen by Ryan Amato, the chief of staff to Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark, rather than apolitical civil servants.
Her report shows that Mr. Amato, put into his role by the Premier’s Office last year, received submissions that ended up accounting for the bulk of the removals from two prominent developers at an industry banquet. Those same developers are now among the landowners who stand to reap an $8.3-billion windfall in increased land values with the lifting of Greenbelt protections, the report said.
The Premier’s Office, acting on another recommendation, has asked the Integrity Commissioner, already probing the Greenbelt decision, to determine if Mr. Amato broke any rules in his dealings with developers.
Last week’s audit report also singled out the practice of making the civil servants involved in the Greenbelt decision sign strict non-disclosure agreements, which made it impossible for them to consult municipalities or other experts.
Chiefs of staff are now being asked to report any proposed use of confidentiality agreements to the cabinet office or the Treasury Board Secretariat. In light of the submissions from developers, the memo also reminds them to follow existing requirements to document any materials or proposals they receive from people outside government.
The Opposition NDP dismissed the memo as more spin from the government, which has launched a communications push in recent days to counter the information in Ms. Lysyk’s report.
“It’s embarrassing, frankly, as well as painfully obvious, that Doug Ford is trying in any way he can to deflect blame for the corrupt Greenbelt removals he and his Housing Minister are wholly responsible for,” NDP spokeswoman Jodie Shupac said.
The government memo was released just after Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy addressed the media on Monday to unveil the province’s first-quarter financial results. Questioned by reporters, he defended the government’s decision to go ahead with the removal of 3,000 hectares from the protected Greenbelt despite the audit’s findings, saying it was necessary amid the housing crisis. He also dismissed multiple expert reports saying Ontario already had enough land for housing, citing recent numbers showing that 500,000 new residents came to the province in just the past year.
Mr. Bethlenfalvy’s Pickering-Uxbridge riding east of Toronto is home to the largest single chunk of once-protected Greenbelt farmland now slated for development, the 1,900-hectare Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve, in Durham Region. The largest landowners there are companies linked to prominent developer Silvio De Gasperis, a large PC donor. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside Mr. Bethlenfalvy’s constituency office on the weekend, in an event organized by a group called Stop Sprawl Durham.
Asked about the multibillion-dollar windfall developers stand to gain, Mr. Bethlenfalvy said builders will have to cough up billions for infrastructure such as schools, roads and community centres on the Greenbelt lands. But just how much they will have to pay is still subject to closed-door talks that have gone on for months – and Mr. Bethlenfalvy said he could not say how much money developers will agree to invest.
“Private interests who are going to develop those homes are going to pay for the infrastructure there,” the Finance Minister said. “Certainly billions. I don’t how much.”