A Freedom of Information request has produced thousands of documents that are going to keep Doug Ford awake at night

By Pepper Parr

November 1st, 2023

BURLINGTON, ON

Back to that drip, drip, drip stuff.

Environmental Defence published a statement earlier today setting out a major concern.  The first paragraph below sets out the context – what caused them to make Freedom of Information requests.  The meat begins in the second paragraph. The reports that the RCMP have begun to make phone calls inviting people in for a conversation adds a little spice to what is taking place.

Drip, drip, drip – do read on.

In November 2022, the Ontario government announced that it would force through massive  expansions of urban boundaries in municipalities across the province, despite those municipalities having determined those expansions would be unhelpful and even counterproductive in boosting housing supply.  This includes expanding  Halton’s settlement boundary by more than 3,000 hectares, and expanding Hamilton’s city boundary by 2,200 hectares.. These expansions were done in addition to the land removals from the Greenbelt and similarly lacked a fact-based rationale as more than ample lands were already available for development to meet the province’s home building targets. In Hamilton, forced boundary expansions were even accompanied by a forced reduction in the minimum share of housing Hamilton’s Official Plan committed to add within existing settlement boundaries.

Ecojustice – on behalf of Environmental Defence – made four freedom of information requests for documents dealing with urban boundary and Greenbelt changes

In response, Ecojustice – on behalf of Environmental Defence – made four freedom of information requests for documents dealing with urban boundary and Greenbelt changes that occurred in late 2022. The groups have obtained four orders from the Information and Privacy Commissioner in relation to these requests as a result of appeals when the Ministry failed to respond.  Of the four requests, two have now resulted in partial releases.

Last week, just days before the release of official plan documents, the Ontario government announced that it was reversing its proposed changes to urban boundaries, and legislation was tabled to reverse the Greenbelt changes. These u-turns are necessary and welcome, but both the absence of any credible good faith reason for these boundary expansions and lack of transparency regarding how they were made raises serious and lingering concerns as to what influence real estate investors and sprawl developers have at the highest levels of government over our keystone land use planning policies.

Staff Ryan Amato, Chief of Staff to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark.

The partial release reveals the chaotic, developer-led process that did an end-run around the normal planning approval process and was driven by political staff in the  Minister’s office. The documents show that Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing’s Chief of Staff Ryan Amato directed senior ministry staff to keep their mouths shut about the changes and made clear that maps showing how some of the preferred developer properties had been moved forward needed to be provided to the Premier’s Office. All of these changes, which favoured particular developers, were rushed through without proper consideration of the impact on existing planned land uses, sensitive natural features, water or agriculture.

Many of the documents, including ones from September and early October, are redacted on the basis that they are Cabinet privileged, even though the Minister and the Premier have claimed under oath that they did not know about the changes until late October 2022.

These redaction’s call that timeline into question.