By Pepper Parr
August 9th, 2023
BURLINGTON, ON
With less than a month to go in her term of office Bonnie Lysyk, Auditor General for the province dropped a scathing 95 page report on what she saw is serious concerns about the exercises used, the way in which standard information gathering and decision protocols were sidelined and abandoned, and how changes to the Greenbelt were unnecessarily rushed thorough,”
She said the Ontario government’s process for choosing protected Greenbelt land to open up for housing development was heavily influenced by a small group of well-connected developers who now stand to make billions of dollars, the province’s auditor general says.
Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk wasn’t buying whatever was being said.
Lysyk offered a damning assessment of how the province selected sites last year for removal from the Greenbelt — a vast 810,000-hectare area of farmland, forest and wetland stretching from Niagara Falls to Peterborough that was meant to be off limits to development.
Lysyk found the selection process was largely controlled by Housing Minister Steve Clark’s chief of staff — not non-partisan public servants — and was also influenced by specific suggestions from developers with access to the chief of staff.
The process didn’t consider agricultural, environmental and financial impacts of the decision, and involved little input from non-political planning experts or other stakeholders, including the general public and Indigenous communities, according to the report.
“Our review … raises serious concerns about the exercises used, the way in which standard information gathering and decision protocols were sidelined and abandoned, and how changes to the Greenbelt were unnecessarily rushed thorough,” Lysyk said at a news conference at Queen’s Park on Wednesday.
“The process was biased in favour of certain developers and landowners who had timely access to the housing minister’s chief of staff.”
Lysyk didn’t name Clark’s chief of staff in the report, however, she later confirmed to reporters it is his current chief of staff. Ryan Amato is currently working in that role.
According to Lysyk, the chief of staff directed a small team of housing ministry bureaucrats in October 2022 who decided which sites would be removed. The work of the so-called “Greenbelt Project Team” was limited to three weeks and they were sworn to confidentiality, according to the report.
According to Lysyk’s report, Clark’s chief of staff identified 21 of the 22 sites the team considered. Ultimately, they settled on 15.
At a news conference later Wednesday, Ford acknowledged shortcomings with the process, but said the government would continue to do everything it can to address the province’s housing crisis.
“While we’ll never waver in our commitment to build more homes, we know there are areas for improvement as we move forward,” Ford said. “We were moving fast. We could have had a better process.”
Ford said his government would accept and implement 14 of the 15 total recommendations Lysyk made in her report. The single recommendation it will not accept is to revisit the land swaps and possibly reverse the decisions, he said.
Surely we have never had such a corrupt government in any province in Canada as this Ontario government. This is outrageous corruption and Clark and Ford should both resign in shame, but of course, they have no shame so they think this is all ok. $8 billion dollars to be made by Ford’s best developer friends, who aren’t building affordable housing, so they can please stop that narrative, and who run our province. Did they discuss all this as they handed over their wedding gifts at Ford’s daughter’s wedding? I doubt they gave toasters.
I’ll be calling our elusive MPP Natalie Pierre today – I’m guessing she’s not around. She actually, in an incredibly tone-deaf post yesterday, posted on social media about supporting dairy farmers with a program at Guelph U. She was pummelled by replies that she and Ford should resign, that there will be no farmers since you’re paving the greenbelt, etc etc. How is she this out of touch? How can anyone support this government?
Just when I thought that Doug Ford and his government had achieved the pinnacle in terms of political mismanagement and incompetence along comes another Report, this one from the Auditor General, and takes it to a whole new level.
I used to think Bob Rae’s 1990 – 1995 provincial NDP government was the worst in Canadian history. That was before I saw the messy negotiations with educational assistants, the license plate debacle, Bill 124 being overturned by the courts, the ridiculous and poorly conceived intensification agenda, and now this latest fiasco. This government is truly a train wreck, and Ford and his administration are an embarrassment to the legacy of quality leadership provided in this province by people such as Bill Davis, John Robarts, George Drew and Leslie Frost.
I’m continually astounded at the number of residents I talk to who plan to vote NDP in the next provincial election. These aren’t utopian socialists, proponents of WOKE, or union supporters, but rather, ordinary citizens who are just weary of the shameful performance by a leader who is both stubborn and inept at the same time. He and Justin Trudeau should both take a hint and pack it in, and the sooner the better!