NDP MPP calls on integrity commissioner to probe Premier Ford and cabinet members over Bradford Bypass decision making

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney, Associate Transportation Minister Stan Cho.  TANIA_PEREIRA / RICK MADONIK, ANDREW FRANCIS WAL

From the Toronto Star, November 3, 2021
By Sheila Wang

Ontario’s integrity commissioner is being asked to investigate the potential roles Premier Doug Ford and two of his cabinet members played in reviving and proposing a re-routing of the controversial Bradford Bypass.

An NDP MPP filed a complaint to the commissioner’s office on Nov. 2 requesting an investigation into Ford, Minister of Transportation Caroline Mulroney and Associate Minister of Transportation Stan Cho, alleging there was conflict of interest, insider information and undue influence in the planning of the 16-kilometre road, which would connect Highways 400 and 404.

The complaint, filed by Essex MPP Taras Natyshak, follows a Torstar/National Observer investigation that found that Associate Minister Cho’s father co-owns Silver Lakes Golf and Country Club in East Gwillimbury — a property that would be spared under a recently proposed route change.

The planned bypass route, which predates the Ford government, originally sliced through the second, third and 11th holes. In April, the Ministry of Transportation released a proposal for a revised plan, one that avoids the golf course and instead runs through residential properties.

A spokesperson for Mulroney said the proposed route change was done by ministry staff, working alongside external consultants, to avoid an archeological site and minimize the highway’s impacts on the Holland Marsh.

“At no point has there been direction, pressure, or suggestion from Minister Mulroney, Associate Minister Cho, or political staff during this technical process,” the spokesperson said.

The proposed route change is “preliminary and no decision has been made on this refinement,” the spokesperson said. “We expect a decision to be made on the revised route in Fall 2022, following input from the public and the conclusion of further technical work.”

Cho’s office says the MPP declared a conflict of interest and a protocol is in place ensuring no information about the bypass is shared or discussed with him.

In his complaint to the integrity commissioner, the NDP’s Natyshak alleges Mulroney may have allowed information relayed to her by Cho concerning the route of the bypass to influence the Ministry of Transportation’s decision to propose the altered route.

A spokesperson for Cho’s office told the Star that the associate minister declared a conflict of interest when he was elevated to his cabinet role in June, and “has not participated in any conversations regarding the Bradford Bypass.”

In March, before Cho was appointed to be the associate minister, he and Mulroney both appeared at his father’s Silver Lakes golf course, and Mulroney visited the golf course again two months later, according to social media posts cited in Natyshak’s complaint.

The golf course, located in East Gwillimbury, has no connection to Cho’s Willowdale riding in Toronto. Cho was “ostensibly there” because of his family connection to the business and for no other publicly disclosed reason, alleges the complaint, which calls on the integrity commissioner to probe any “undue influence” Cho may have had.

In a statement, NDP MPP Catherine Fife said the bypass’s proposed rerouting around the golf course “reeks of a special deal for a buddy.”

“Stan Cho hosted the minister responsible for this decision at his dad’s golf course. And, boom, the golf course is spared. It looks sketchy,” said Fife, NDP MPP for Waterloo.

Mulroney struck back at Fife in Tuesday’s Question Period, saying, “the depictions of the Chos as anything but success stories is unacceptable. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

The minister said since Cho was elected in June 2018, he has been screened from information related to the bypass, adding no one in her office has had any conversations with Cho about the planned highway. Mulroney’s visit to the golf course “was in her capacity as MPP to show support for local businesses during the incredibly difficult COVID-19 pandemic,” a spokesperson said.

The complaint also alleges Premier Ford had “a clear conflict of interest” in reviving the bypass, on the grounds that extensive donations were made to the Progressive Conservatives from development companies who own substantial plots of land near the planned route.

The joint Torstar/National Observer investigation found more than a dozen developers collectively own 53 large properties covering at least 3,100 acres near the proposed highway’s route — conservatively valued at more than $350 million.

Access to transportation routes such as a new highway drives up land prices, and the value could skyrocket if the Bradford Bypass is built and the areas along the route are opened for development.

Altogether, the developers, their companies, senior staff and family members have given at least $858,000 to the Progressive Conservatives since 2014. They gave about $453,000 to the Ontario Liberals and $38,000 to the Ontario NDP over the same period.

Alexandra Adamo, a spokesperson for the Premier’s office said the “frivolous complaint is without merit based on a misleading story in the Toronto Star.”

“It’s disappointing the NDP have nothing constructive to contribute when it comes to addressing the problems facing commuters in Ontario,” she wrote in an email.

Ford, who has made the bypass and Highway 413 cornerstones of the Progressive Conservatives’ re-election strategy, fiercely defended the project.

“We’re a party of building infrastructure and we’ll get this province moving again,” he said.

The idea to build a corridor connecting Highways 400 and 404 has been around for decades.

In 2002, the PC government of the day signed off on the project’s environmental assessment, with construction to begin within four years. But it was shelved when Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty took power in 2003.

Under pressure from municipalities who wanted it built, the Kathleen Wynne Liberals put the bypass back in its long-term plans in 2017. The project lay dormant until 2019 when Ford’s PCs announced a plan to put shovels in the ground.

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