Province asks integrity commissioner to investigate staffer's role in Greenbelt land swaps

Ontario's integrity commissioner is considering a request from Premier Doug Ford's government to investigate if the housing minister's chief of staff broke any ethics rules connected to the province's choice of Greenbelt land to open for development.

A spokesperson for David Wake's office said Thursday that if an investigation is launched, it would determine whether political staffer Ryan Amato "acted contrary to the requirements of the Public Service of Ontario Act, 2006," which include conflict of interest rules. 

The request, which was made by Ford's office, is "under review," the spokesperson said. 

It comes in the wake of an explosive report from Ontario's auditor general that concluded the government's Greenbelt land swaps in 2022 were heavily influenced by a small group of politically connected developers. 

The auditor general's probe found that Amato, current chief of staff to Housing Minister Steve Clark, spearheaded the selection of land in a manner "that cannot be described as a standard or defensible process." A majority of the sites ultimately removed from the Greenbelt were chosen after specific suggestions from developers to Amato, according to the report.

"The process was biased in favour of certain developers and landowners who had timely access to the housing minister's chief of staff," Bonnie Lysyk wrote in her 95-page report.

The work of the province's "Greenbelt Project Team," which Amato headed, was limited to three weeks and "excluded substantive input from land-use planning experts in provincial ministries, municipalities, conservation authorities, First Nations leaders, and the public," the report said. Its members were sworn to confidentiality.

Lysyk found it was Amato who identified 21 of the 22 sites the team considered. Ultimately, they settled on 15.

In one instance, according to a timeline of key events in the report, two prominent housing developers approached Amato in September 2022 at a building industry event and provided him with "packages" containing information on two sites — an area in the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve (DRAP) in Pickering and a site in the Township of King that was purchased that very month for $80 million. 

As CBC Toronto has reported, Silvio De Gasperis, president of the Tacc Group of companies, owns more than two dozen properties in the DRAP. Michael Rice, CEO of Rice Group, owns the King property. Both De Gasperis and Rice — who were not named in the report — fought the auditor general's summons' to answer questions about the land swaps.

Lysyk made 15 total recommendations to the government. Among them was that the government request the integrity commissioner investigate whether Amato "acted contrary to the requirements of the Public Service of Ontario Act, 2006 with respect to his liaisons with land developers and their representatives."

At a news conference Wednesday, both Ford and Clark denied they had knowledge of how Amato and his team were selecting sites for removal from the Greenbelt. When asked whether Amato would keep his job, Clark refused to answer directly.

More to come.