Traffic passes through the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve, part of Ontario's Greenbelt, on May 15.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
The Ontario government’s defence of its indefensible deal to hand over thousands of hectares of protected land to favoured developers is one of the more disingenuous bits of political theatre in recent history.
The Progressive Conservatives’ damage control is positively avant-garde in its contempt for voters’ intelligence. Sure, they say, a flawed process was used to select 15 lots for development in the Greenbelt, but Ontario desperately needs housing because of a crisis in supply exacerbated by increased immigration, so that makes it okay.
That was the lame justification proffered by Premier Doug Ford after the province’s Auditor-General exposed a process that was, in her words, “not transparent, fair, objective, or fully informed,” and which led to “certain prominent developers receiving preferential treatment.”
“We have two choices,” Mr. Ford rebutted in an op-ed piece. “We can build more homes or we can sit back and let the crisis get worse.”
What utter rot. Even if Mr. Ford is incapable of doing so himself, it’s easy to imagine a third choice; that is, spurring construction without shamelessly using the cover of the housing crisis to reward land speculation by favoured political supporters and donors.
OPP refers Ontario Greenbelt matter to RCMP to avoid ‘conflict of interest’
As Auditor-General Bonnie Lysyk reported, what should have been an independent, apolitical decision about which parcels of land would be removed from the Greenbelt was “undermined” by “non-elected political staff, and developers and their lobbyists.”
Ms. Lysyk said the short list of sites considered for removal was hand-fed to a cloistered team of public servants by Ryan Amato, the chief of staff to Housing Minister Steve Clark, and that 92 per cent of the land that ultimately benefited was recommended by two developers who had access to Mr. Amato.
Mr. Amato made the team sign a confidentiality agreement that prohibited them from speaking to anyone about their work. If a chosen site didn’t meet certain criteria, the criteria were changed or dropped, Ms. Lysyk found.
All told, the developers whose lots were removed from the Greenbelt could see the value of their holdings increase by $8.3-billion.
This gerrymandering is completely unacceptable. The ends – quickly building more homes in a housing crisis – aren’t justified by their anti-democratic and unfair means.
Even Mr. Ford agrees with that – up to a point. He says his government will implement 14 of Ms. Lysyk’s recommendations about shoring up the neutrality of Ontario’s civil service and increasing ministerial responsibility. But he won’t agree to a recommendation that he re-evaluate the outcome.
Which means we may be stuck with it.
There is still an investigation into the matter to come from the province’s integrity commissioner; Ms. Lysyk outlined potential violations of the province’s lobbying rules and the Public Service of Ontario Act in her report. And the Ontario Green Party and some environmental groups have called for a police investigation.
But there is little reason to believe Mr. Ford will reverse his government’s decision.
So what now? There are things Mr. Ford needs to do if he wants to restore his credibility.
He needs to live up to his government’s commitment that “significant progress on approvals and implementation must be achieved by the end of 2023,” and that “new home construction will begin on these lands by no later than 2025,” or the land will be returned to the Greenbelt.
His government has also promised that “local infrastructure upgrades needed to service the projects [are] to be funded entirely by the proponents.”
It’s these things that will reveal Mr. Ford’s true agenda.
Ms. Lysyk said in her report that the cost of adding the needed infrastructure would likely be in the billions of dollars, and could take up to 10 years.
If the land in question is flipped this year or next, and if the government’s deadlines around progress come and go without consequence, it will be clear what the purpose of the exercise really was. The same thing goes if the public gets stuck with the bill for the infrastructure needed for the 50,000 new homes Mr. Ford says will be built in the Greenbelt.
Mr. Ford may think he has put the matter behind him, but he has yet to show Ontario voters that his government’s actions were in the public interest.