Police investigators crack their cases when they follow the money

By Pepper Parr

August 15^th, 2023

BURLINGTON, ON

OPINION

There is something about all that property that was taken out of the Greenbelt boundaries and open to housing development that I don’t understand.

The figure of $8.3 billion is being used to express the increase in the value of the land that developers bought on which they are expected to build residential housing.

The developers are going to make a tonne of money once the housing is built and sold.

It is said that the developers are “friends” of the Premier.

The Minister of Housing, who said he has the confidence of the Premier and doesn’t appear to be all that uncomfortable with what is Chief of Staff did for the developers.

Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs Steve Clark

Ontario Premier Doug Ford

So I ask myself?  Why would the Premier sign off on this in a Cabinet meeting?

Why would a Minister of Housing sign off on this after he presented a case in a Cabinet meeting?

And why would a Chief of Staff meet with these developers and accept packages of information that set out which properties they developers would like to have taken out of the Greenbelt Boundary?.

Chief of Staff to the Minister of Housing Ryan Amato

What was in it for the Premier, the Minister of Housing and his Chief of Staff?

Nothing?

Really?

I have no evidence to turn to that suggests there were payoffs.

The Provincial Police have said they are investigating.

In Ontario the Provincial Police, police at any level for that matter, tend not to put their noses into anything the politicians.

Looks like a duck

You know that phrase: If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck – it’s a duck.

We may not have much in the way of certainty as to just what to call this – but it certainly stinks.

Is there any hope of changing the decision – and putting the land back within the Greenbelt Boundary.

In the stock market business if the regulators find that there was something crooked taking place they can and order that the transaction be unwound.

Salt with Pepper is the musings, reflections and opinions of the publisher of the Burlington Gazette, an online newspaper that was formed in 2010 and is a member of the National Newsmedia Council.