Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Housing Minister Steve Clark to make an announcement Friday
CTV
Ontario Premier Doug Ford will be speaking alongside Housing Minister Steve Clark in Mississauga on Friday, days after a scathing report found the government’s Greenbelt plans “favoured” certain developers.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford will be speaking alongside Housing Minister Steve Clark in Mississauga on Friday, days after a scathing report found the government’s Greenbelt plans “favoured” certain developers.
The news conference will be live streamed on CTVNewsToronto.ca and the CTV News app at 10 a.m.
The special report on the Progressive Conservative’s plans to open up protected Greenbelt land to developers was released by the auditor general on Wednesday.
The report indicated there was a bias towards individuals and companies with direct access to the housing ministry. It also found the process lacked transparency and failed to consider environmental, agricultural and financial impacts of the changes.
The majority of the decision-making appeared to have been done by Clark’s chief of staff Ryan Amato, who proposed 14 of the 15 sites that were ultimately removed from the Greenbelt. More than 90 per cent of the land could be tied to three developers.
The report also found that Amato implemented a strict three-week timeline for the team of public servants tasked with reviewing sites for removal and altered criteria when it was determined most of the sites would not fit the set parameters.
The government has maintained the quick changes to the Greenbelt were necessary in order to build more housing in the midst of a crisis. However, the auditor general noted she could not find any evidence that removing land from the Greenbelt was needed to meet the government’s housing goals.
