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Front Burner Transcript for August 14

Host: Jamie Poisson

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

TAMARA KHANDAKER: Hi, I'm Tamara Khandaker.

SOUNDCLIP

BONNIE LYSYK: More troubling. Still, the process was biased in favor of certain developers and landowners who had timely access to the Housing Minister's chief of staff.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: That's Ontario's Auditor general Bonnie Lysyk, delivering a scathing report on Wednesday about the province's plans to build on the greenbelt. Premier Doug Ford had promised to preserve this vast network of vulnerable greenspace, but in November he announced that the province was going to lift protections on thousands of acres to try and build more houses. The Auditor General's report now says there is no evidence the land was needed for housing and that it was chosen under heavy influence from a small group of well-connected developers and that those same developers now stand to make a lot of money.

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BONNIE LYSYK: Owners of the 15 land sites removed from the greenbelt could ultimately see more than a collective $8.3 billion increase to the value of their properties.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: Ford's government is now facing accusations of corruption and calls for resignations. The Premier and his minister admit that the process was flawed. But Ford maintains that the land is needed for housing.

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DOUG FORD: We have a housing crisis, the likes of which as province in this country has never seen before.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: So to make sense of everything in the report, I'm joined by Fatima Syed. She's an Ontario reporter for the Narwhal. Hi, Fatima. It's great to talk to you.

FATIMA SYED: Hi, Tamara. Thanks for having me.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: Yeah, thanks for being here. So let's start with a bit of a temperature check here. How would you describe the public reaction to this report?

FATIMA SYED: I mean, look, since this green belt issue has surfaced in November when the Ford government announced it first, things have been loud and angry in Ontario. And I think this report has just added fuel to the fire in a major way. We've got opposition leaders asking for heads to roll at Queen's Park.

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OPPOSITION LEADER: That, to me, smells of corruption, and I think we need to call it that. And again, if the government wants to come out and defend what happened and say, no, no, we just didn't know we were just that incompetent. I mean, this is the Premier of this province.

FATIMA SYED: We're hearing calls for resignation of the minister, municipal affairs and housing, as you said in your intro, as well as his chief of staff who is implicated in this report in a huge way. We're hearing calls of corruption and people are just really, really mad that the government allowed such a flawed process to make such an important decision that really benefited a couple of wealthy developers.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: And before we get into the details of this report and why there's so much backlash, I'm hoping you can give me a brief refresher on what the greenbelt actually is and why is it so important?

FATIMA SYED: So the greenbelt is this amazing conservation story that has existed in Ontario since the early 2000s. It is 2 million acres of farmland and green space. It's home to hundreds of incredible species. It's where Ontario gets its food, its water, its hikes, its Instagrammed moments in every weather. And it was designed to be protected forever. And if you can imagine, this piece of land is larger than Prince Edward Island. And as the impacts of climate change were getting worse and the realization that we really needed to be better at protecting and preserving the natural environment that we're lucky to have access to in this province. And over the years, it's because it was created through a political mechanism, it sort of found itself at the center of a lot of political football games.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: Yeah. And just to add to what you said, the greenbelt also has some of the best farming land in Canada that helps prevent flooding and it's supposed to stop urban sprawl, right?So before Doug Ford was even elected Premier, there was a video that emerged of him saying that he would open the greenbelt for housing development based on the advice of developers.

SOUNDCLIP

DOUG FORD: We will open up the greenbelt, not all of it, but we're going to open a big chunk of it up and we're going to start building and making it more affordable. I've already talked to some of the biggest developers in this country and again, I wish I could say it's my idea, but it was their idea as well. Give us property we'll build. We'll drive the costs down.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: But the very next day, after a lot of backlash, he promised that he'd leave the greenbelt alone. And later, his housing minister, Steve Clarke, said the same thing. But that changed in November of last year. And what changes did the Ford government suddenly announce?

FATIMA SYED: Yeah. So overnight we had this policy that opened 15 parcels of greenbelt land. Now, the government was framing this at the time as a land swap. They said that we're going to open up just over 7000 acres of land to development and we're going to add 9000 acres of land. But when you looked at the map and you looked at the fine details, it didn't make sense. You know, one of the first questions we had was why these particular parcels of land. And when you looked closer at the, you know, the land that they wanted to add, they weren't being very specific about it. So it raised a lot of alarm bells because it came out of nowhere. And it also came at the heels of a big housing legislation that the Ford government put out that was making sweeping changes to environmental policy that would allow construction unfettered, you know, let's just build anywhere and everywhere with as minimal red tape as possible.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: So the Ford government announces these changes, and that's when the Narwhal and the Toronto Star started digging and they found six housing developers had bought Greenbelt land after Ford took office and that some of these same developers had donated significant amounts of money to Ford's Progressive Conservative Party. And then we saw investigations launched, including one from Ontario's Auditor General, which resulted in the report released last Wednesday. And tell me about that. What did the report find about how the land was selected for development?

FATIMA SYED: Yeah, I think, you know, very early on and my colleagues at the Narwhal and the Star were making connections to developers and these parcels of land. And the big question Ontario had was were they tipped off? Did they know that the greenbelt was going to be opened up somehow because the main beneficiary of this policy would be these developers? And the Auditor General basically confirmed it. And in doing so, she unveiled a series of events that I can only describe as made for political TV because it wasn't the government that tipped off developers but the other way around. What we learned from the report was that a small group of developers were able to directly deliver to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing's chief of staff, who is the most senior, most non-elected political staffer in that ministry. The developers were able to give this person whose name is Ryan Amato, a bunch of packages about lands that they wanted open for development that they owned. Not only that, but there was law firms representing these developers that was directly emailing Mr. Amato about more land that they wanted opened up, and this person was able to collect all these suggestions from the developers and hand-deliver them to a covert team that he himself set up of public servants called the Greenbelt Project team and direct them to assess whether these lands could be open to development. And throughout the process, the report highlights how this person had so much authority in changing the criteria of the assessment that was used. So every time this team came up with an issue, Mr. Amato was able to tell them to ignore it. So, for example, this team came to him and said, you know, some of these lands don't have the infrastructure you need to build on things like sewage lines and electricity lines and access to transit and utilities and emergency services. And Mr. Amato said that they could disregard any infrastructure considerations and just look at the location of the lands and whether they were close to urban areas and developed areas. When the team came back and said, hey, some of these lands are actually deep in the greenbelt and if you build on them, it would mean you're creating isolated housing communities that are far from, you know, developed areas and are sort of like in the middle of the forest or in the middle of a lot of, you know, natural land. And again, Mr. Amato was able to tell them to just think about expanding the boundary of the nearest urban area.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: Wow.

FATIMA SYED: And the fact that this non-elected political staffer was able to do all of this and his decisions were not known by his boss, which is the minister himself or his boss's boss, the Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, is wild. And also the fact that he was able to do this and his actions resulted in an $8.3 billion property value increase minimum for two developers who own 92% of the greenbelt lands that were opened up. It's perhaps even more wild than the first realization.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: This is a lot. So. So if I could just summarize everything that you just said. Essentially, this process was led by a political staffer, not a public servant. That's the Housing Minister's chief of staff, Ryan Amato. He assembles this team of six public servants. They have to sign NDAs and they're tasked with figuring out which pieces of greenbelt land could be open for redevelopment. 21 out of the 22 sites that they were considering were proposed by Amato himself, ultimately 14 out of the 15 that were selected. They had three weeks to do this. Every time they came back to him with reasons why pieces of land couldn't be. Considered for development, he would change the criteria. Right. And ultimately, two developers stand to make $8.3 billion of profit from it.

FATIMA SYED: Yeah, there are layers and layers and layers of issues highlighted in the Auditor General's report that I could just list for probably this entire episode. I mean, you mentioned NDAs, which I did not, and I'm glad you did because it wasn't just that team that was made to sign confidentiality agreements. It was literally anyone who touched anything about the green belt in in these few months before the announcement that was made to sign confidentiality agreements. 93 in total were signed, according to the auditor general's report. And not only that, but she found that a lot of emails were sent through their personal emails, not their government emails, which is against a lot of public service guidelines and legislation, and many were deleted. So we don't even have full records of the communications that were happening, presumably between the chief of staff and developers or public servants or anyone else that he may have been engaging with on the greenbelt.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: So the report says that these developers got preferential treatment from the housing ministry. What evidence does the report point to?

FATIMA SYED: So the report highlights just the sheer amount of direct access these developers or people who represented these developers had to the chief of staff. You know, one particular incident described is how the chief of Staff attended this building industry dinner where he was handed packages about parcels of land by developers themselves who were sitting at his table or just at the event. And after that dinner, you know, law firms representing the developer emailed him more suggestions and more information and things like, you know, when the the team that we described earlier had questions about certain parcels of land, the chief of staff was able to directly communicate with the developers and bring back the team five USB keys worth of information about these parcels of land. So there's a lot of direct communication happening between this political staffer and the developers that are set to profit from this government policy that are described in great detail in the auditor's report. That is concerning many people and rightly so.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: Right. And we should say that Doug Ford denies the preferential treatment allegation. I also just wanted to quickly mention the public consultations here. So the government had a legal duty to consult with the public and with indigenous communities. And how well did the Auditor General say it did that?

FATIMA SYED: Yeah, this is a thing, right? Like on the one hand, you have this, extremely troubling description of the direct access developers had to, you know, the ministry's most senior political staffers. And on the other hand, this report highlights everyone who wasn't heard at all, let alone consulted. You know, Ontario is bound by this incredible piece of legislation that's called the Environmental Bill of Rights. What that says is that every time the government proposes a change to environmental or energy policy, they have to consult the public. Ontario is also bound constitutionally by a duty to consult First Nations and indigenous communities about any change that could impact their land, which, as you can imagine, is a lot of changes that are proposed. None of this was done for the Greenbelt policy. The Auditor General finds that the public wasn't given, not given enough time, that Indigenous communities received a mere handful of emails just informing them that the policy was posted online for their consideration and if they had any questions they could reach out to to anyone in the government and the public. You know, in total, the government received 35,000 comments about this greenbelt policy and the Auditor General finds that most of them were negative and none of them were properly considered or reviewed or responded to.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: Yeah, and the thing that I keep going back to is the fact that this whole process was supposed to be completed in three weeks and how were they supposed to respond to 35,000 negative comments, right?

FATIMA SYED: And more than that, I think, you know, for months on end. Premier Doug Ford and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Steve Clarke, gave this narrative to Ontario that everything was above board, that things were done with the direction of public servants, that there was no sort of preferential treatment given to anyone, and that the government had done all the work and all the due process it needed to to make this decision. This report by the Auditor General completely and entirely and thoroughly debunks that narrative.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: So the Housing Minister, Steve Clarke, has repeatedly said civil servants decided on the green belt changes. Both he and Forde say they didn't know about the specific changes until right before the announcement. And I know it's still a bit murky, but given how much of this report talks about what the Housing Minister's chief of staff, Ryan Amato, did, what role does it look like Ford and Clarke actually played in choosing this land?

FATIMA SYED: I mean, according to the Auditor General's report, neither Ford nor Clarke knew about what Ryan Amato was up to. And when it came to, you know, there was a Cabinet meeting in early November where this policy was put forward for a vote. It seems like no one really looked or inquired about how we actually chose these parcels of land. The proposal was presented as is, and the Auditor General finds that extremely concerning and said that, you know, Minister Clarke has said that he did not know what was going on, but maybe he should have. And that's what she said in her press conference.

SOUNDCLIP

BONNIE LYSYK: We are questioning that somebody could, you know, manage an initiative like this without any type of supervision or oversight. And so the way we've concluded on that is that we do say we do believe the minister ought to have known.

FATIMA SYED: There is a responsibility the minister had,to be aware of what's happening in his own house, and he did not.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: Right.

FATIMA SYED: And that is extremely concerning.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: And what have Doug Ford and Steve Clarke been saying since the auditor general's report came out, how have they responded to calls for resignation and the Ontario NDP allegations of corruption?

FATIMA SYED: So they've they've largely stayed on message, which is that the progressive conservative government of Ontario is building houses and that they're building them for all the young people in Ontario and the immigrants and the newcomers and the refugees that are going to choose Ontario today and tomorrow.

SOUNDCLIP

DOUG FORD: When you have a problem as severe as we have in terms of the housing supply crisis, you can you can take two paths. You can stop building or you can continue to build. And our government's chosen to continue to build. Failing to act would worsen the housing supply and affordability crisis. Young families and newcomers in search of the Ontario dream will see home ownership slip further away.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: And they're sticking to that message despite the fact that the Auditor General's report is just the latest in a long series of reports that completely eviscerates every single one of those points. You know, this report makes clear again that the greenbelt did not need to be opened for housing to be built in Ontario, that we have enough land that is ready for development in this province that we're not building on fast enough, and that even the lands that have been opened up in the greenbelt aren't really seeing construction right now. And there's no accountability mechanism in place from the government to ensure that construction begins. You know, the Auditor General quotes the chief planner of Durham region where most of the greenbelt lands that have been opened exist, who says that it would take at least 25 years to get those greenbelt lands to be ready for construction. Meanwhile, the Ford government has said that they want to see shovels in the ground in 2025, and if they don't, they would return those lands to the greenbelt, which, you know, is very mind boggling to consider in the light of everything we've been through since last November.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: So so basically the government is saying this is an immediate solution to the housing crisis. But the AG's report saying, no, this is going to actually take a really long time. And I also just wanted to go back to Ryan Amato, the political staffer who's who's at the center of this. How has he responded to the report?

FATIMA SYED: He hasn't. We we haven't heard from him. You know, I emailed him the day that the report came out and got an out of office. I'm not sure you know what his response is to the report. I do know, based on the press conference that both Premier Ford and Mr. Clarke did on the day the report was released, and even one after that that the Premier, according to Minister Clark, has full support and confidence in Minister Clark and his team, which presumably still includes Mr. Amato, because based on our knowledge, he's still in his role.

SOUNDCLIP

REPORTER: The integrity Commissioner may launch a second investigation into the Ford government land swap. He's already investigating the Housing minister's role. Now he may investigate the Housing Minister's chief of staff as well. The watchdog confirmed the office is considering it at the request of the Premier's.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: So the auditor general made these 15 recommendations in her report, and Doug Ford is accepting all of them except one, which is that he should reevaluate whether to remove these protections at all. So for people who don't want to see development on the greenbelt, do they have any recourse? And could this be reversed somehow?

FATIMA SYED: See, this is the part where things get a little difficult because we have to wait for a lot of institutions to make their decisions to see if there's any recourse going to happen over this. You know, the Ontario Provincial Police is still considering whether or not to investigate the government's greenbelt decision, whether there was any criminal activity there. And I know that the Auditor General has actually spoken to the Ontario Provincial police and in the process of putting together this report.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: Mm hmm.

FATIMA SYED: We're waiting on a decision by them. We're waiting to see, you know, what that results in. But beyond that, when the auditor general was asked about this, she said the main thing that can be done is for Ontarians to use their voice. It is actually the only recourse the province has right now.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: Hmm.

FATIMA SYED: You know, all these parcels of land and the development that is planned on them are going to be discussed at city councils that are open to the public.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: Mm hmm.

FATIMA SYED: Or should be at least. And anyone can go and voice their their thoughts and their concerns. And, you know, this report is hopefully given the public more information about how their government is making decisions and what they think about that they can make known.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: Okay, Fatima, thank you so much for this conversation and talking us through this. I really appreciate it.

FATIMA SYED: Thanks for having me, Tamara.

TAMARA KHANDAKER: All right. That's all for today. I'm Tamara Khandaker. Thank you so much for listening. And I will talk to you tomorrow.

Ontario's Greenbelt, Doug Ford and an explosive audit - Transcript

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