The Progressive Conservatives are playing Ontarians for fools on Greenbelt development

The scheme fails every test of good governance and raises serious concerns about the propriety of what has transpired, given the involvement of a few developers who stand to profit mightily. Yet Clark, the municipal affairs and housing minister, and the premier appear determined to make a virtue of what many would rightly consider a firing offence.

In an opinion piece published in the National Post, Ford said that “unlocking more land to build homes families can afford” is part of the province’s strategy. “We have two choices: we can build more homes or we can sit back and let the crisis get worse. Our government is choosing to build,” he wrote.

Clark confirmed again Thursday that the Greenbelt decision would not be revisited, one of Lysyk’s recommendations. “We need to do everything we can to get shovels in the ground,” Clark told Newstalk 1010’s John Moore.

Did they read Lysyk’s report? Do they grasp the gravity of her findings? Or perhaps they are too focused on seeing the developers reap their profits.

Let’s recap some of the many reasons detailed in Lysyk’s findings why this is a terrible idea:

• Housing of all sorts is needed to keep space with Ontario’s swelling population. But here’s the nub – there’s plenty of land available elsewhere. The 7,400 acres of natural Greenbelt lands earmarked for development aren’t needed for housing. That’s the conclusion of the government’s Housing Affordability Task Force, the housing ministry, and the chief planners of the three affected regions, according to Lysyk. There is sufficient land outside the Greenbelt to meet the housing targets. “There is no evidence this land is needed to reach that goal,” she stated.

Furthermore, the 50,000 homes planned for these lands represent less than 5 per cent of the province’s goal of building 1.5 million homes over the next decade. These homes – which are not likely to be affordable to many families who need housing – will not make or break the overall strategy.

• the exercise to select these lands frankly stinks and rings alarm bells. More than 90 per cent of the lands selected for development had been passed to Ryan Amato, Clark’s chief of staff, by two developers. There was no formal assessment whether the lands could be properly served by municipal infrastructure, such as roads, transit and utilities. The Star and the Narwhal have reported that eight of those 15 affected plots were purchased after Ford’s Progressive Conservatives took power in 2018.

A hasty selection process, wrapped in secrecy, meant there no effective consultations with the public, municipalities or Indigenous groups and the overwhelming negative reaction to the plan was essentially ignored. It was, Lysyk wrote, a “non-transparent exercise and preferential decision making without the benefit of sound information and recommendations.”

• Ford claims the Greenbelt developments will deliver “billions of dollars” in new community infrastructure such as roads, parks and community centres. In fact, the housing ministry did not estimate the infrastructure costs or determine who would pay for it, Lysyk’s report found. “It remains unclear who . . . will ultimately bear the full costs to service the land,” the report states.

• building on the Greenbelt will mean the loss of valuable agricultural land. Developing these sites will have “significant adverse impacts on agriculture,” the report found. The changes to the Greenbelt boundaries also threatens almost 1,000 acres of wetlands and woodlands. Once farmland is lost to housing, you never get it back. And, we also have an obligation to feed our growing population at a time experts are predicting a global food shortage due to climate change.

Not surprisingly, environmental and agricultural factors were dropped from the assessment of these lands at the behest of Clark’s chief of staff. Given these details, the federal government should be exercising what power it has to ensure a full environmental assessment is done on the proposed developments.

The rushed decision-making, running roughshod over community feedback and the misleading political statements draw on the same playbook that has characterized so many of this government’s policy moves, from the redevelopment of Ontario Place to the relocation of the Ontario Science Centre to the patronage controversy over the King’s Counsel honour.

Yet the Greenbelt decision is by degrees worse. As Lysyk notes, the owners of the 15 sites removed from the Greenbelt could ultimately see a $8.3 billion boost to the value of their properties.

As we wrote Thursday, Clark should be fired from cabinet, the land developments halted and a police investigation conducted.

Integrity Commissioner J. David Wake is conducting his own probe of the land deals. Yet the more we learn about this troubling affair, the more we think a judicial inquiry may be needed to get all the facts about this government’s dealings with developers.

The determination of Ford and Clark to flout Lysyk’s findings and push ahead with this badly flawed scheme does more than raise questions. In the zeal to address the housing crisis, the Progressive Conservatives have created a crisis of confidence in their ability to govern and their commitment to the public good.