Ontario developer asks court to prevent, delay interview with auditor general in Greenbelt audit

A prominent Toronto-area developer is asking a court to block or delay a provincial watchdog from interviewing him as part of its investigation into the Ontario government's decision to open formerly protected land for housing development, CBC News has learned. 

Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk has been looking into the government's removal of more than 2,995 hectares of land from 15 different areas of southern Ontario's Greenbelt so that 50,000 homes can be built. Other land will be added elsewhere. The Greenbelt was created in 2005 to permanently protect agricultural and environmentally sensitive lands from development and covers some 810,000 hectares area of farmland, forest and wetland from Niagara Falls to Peterborough. 

As part of that process, Lysyk issued a summons in late June to Silvio De Gasperis, president of the Vaughan, Ont.-based Tacc Group of companies, demanding he provide information related to properties his companies own that were removed from the Greenbelt, according to an application filed on behalf of De Gasperis with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on June 29.

The summons demanded De Gasperis submit to an "examination under oath" and bring any relevant "records, correspondence, notes and documents," according to the court filing. 

The filing said the summons followed a letter sent in mid-June by Lysyk's office, which noted that the Tacc Group owned lands in the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve in Pickering, Ont., that are no longer subject to Greenbelt restrictions.

That letter outlined some of the possible topics of the interview, according to the court filing, including how the Ontario government identified Tacc Group's lands for removal from the Greenbelt, the Ontario government's expectations for the development of land removed from the Greenbelt, and the overall experience working with the government to remove the land from the Greenbelt.

In his application, De Gasperis asks the court to quash the summons or, alternatively, suspend it while the auditor general provides more information about what she wants him to discuss.

The filing claims De Gasperis doesn't have the information the auditor general's office is seeking, that the auditor general doesn't have the jurisdiction to conduct such an audit, and that requesting him to appear is an abuse of process, among other things.

Neil Wilson, a partner with Stevenson Whelton LLP who is representing De Gasperis, declined to comment. Emails and a phone call to Tacc Developments — Tacc Group's main company — requesting an interview with De Gasperis went unanswered.

Lysyk's office agreed in January to conduct "certain audit work" related to Ontario's Greenbelt policy in response to a joint call from all three opposition parties for a "value-for-money" audit and an assessment into the financial and environmental effects of the removal. However, she never defined the full scope of the audit publicly.

In a phone call Monday, Lysyk said she can't comment on the details of the audit — including its scope — as it is still in process. She said she hopes to table a report before her 10-year term ends on Sept. 3.

Ontario's Integrity Commissioner J. David Wake is conducting an investigation of his own into the Greenbelt decision.

The De Gasperis family founded the Tacc Group of companies, which includes Tacc Developments, Tacc Construction, Arista Homes, Opus Homes and Decast Ltd., among others, and are known for building homes in planned subdivisions across the Greater Toronto Area.