The political staffer who played a key role in the Ontario government’s controversial move to open up thousands of hectares of protected Greenbelt land for housing development has resigned.
The Premier’s office said Tuesday it had accepted Ryan Amato’s resignation as chief of staff to Housing Minister Steve Clark “effective immediately.”
The resignation comes less than two weeks after Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk issued a scathing report into the government’s removal of land from southern Ontario’s Greenbelt in December — a vast 810,000-hectare area of farmland, forest and wetland stretching from Niagara Falls to Peterborough meant to be off-limits to development.
While the province added more protected land elsewhere, the removals are meant to lead to the construction of 50,000 homes in service of the province’s goal of building 1.5 million new homes in the next decade.
Lysyk’s investigation found the government’s process for choosing which sites to remove was influenced by a small number of well-connected real estate developers with access to Amato
The report said Amato — not non-partisan public servants — selected 14 of the 15 sites that were ultimately removed from the Greenbelt and the majority were chosen after suggestions from developers who lobbied him personally through encounters at an industry event or in emails sent by their lawyers.
CBC Toronto reached out to Amato for comment by email but didn’t immediately receive a response.
Both Ford and Clark have said they were unaware that the land chosen for removal was brought forward by Amato via the developers. Ford has said he was only briefed on the sites the day before cabinet approved the changes, while Clark has said he learned of the plan the week prior.
Liberals, Greens, NDP call for Clark to resign
Amato’s resignation wasn’t enough to put an end to calls from opposition leaders for more accountability .
Interim Liberal Leader John Fraser said Amato’s resignation doesn’t resolve the situation and he called for the housing minister himself to resign.
“It is simply not believable that one political staffer was behind this $8.3-billion cash-for-your-land-scheme,” Fraser said in a statement.
“The truth of the matter is that the minister and the premier brought forward and supported this scheme at cabinet with the full knowledge of what they were doing.”
The leaders of Ontario’s Liberal and Green parties continue to say Housing Minister Steve Clark should resign. ( The Canadian Press/Cole Burston)
Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner agreed that Clark should resign, adding Ford should reverse the decision to “pave over the Greenbelt.”.
“The resignation of Minister Clark’s chief of staff is the first step in the long process to restore public trust,” Schreiner said.
“But if the premier believes this is the end of the story, he’s mistaken.”
Ford has said no one received preferential treatment and that his government would accept and implement 14 of 15 total recommendations Lysyk made in her report. The single recommendation it will not accept is to revisit the land swaps and possibly reverse those decisions.
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles, for her part, said in a statement the resignation is the “bare minimum of accountability for one of the most serious breaches of public trust” in provincial history.
“The auditor general’s report was very clear—this staffer obviously didn’t act independently,” Stiles said.
“Now it’s time that the Minister take responsibility, do the right thing, and step down; time that the government recall the Legislature so we can restore these lands to the Greenbelt for protection; and time for the Conservatives to start providing Ontarians with the transparency and accountability they deserve. Mr. Ford needs to face the music.”
92% of land removed by developers with access
Lysyk found Amato directed a small team of housing ministry bureaucrats in October 2022 that decided which sites would be removed.
Instead of finding that developers were tipped off in advance, Lysyk found it was the developers themselves who, in many cases, successfully lobbied to have specific sites they owned opened up for housing development.
“Many of these individuals had advocated for the removal in emails and in-person meetings within a few months prior to their removal,” according to the report.
According to a timeline of key events, two prominent housing developers approached Clark’s chief of staff in September 2022 at a building industry event and provided him with information on two sites in the Greenbelt — an area in the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve (DRAP) in Pickering and a site in the Township of King 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 swap.
Shortly after the September event, one of the developers provided Amato with information related to three other sites.
“About 92 per cent of the land that was ultimately removed from the Greenbelt was requested to be removed by the developers the chief of staff dined with at [the event],” the report said.
Citing the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, which is responsible for calculating property values in Ontario, Lysyk estimates the landowners of the 15 sites removed from the Greenbelt could see their land’s value increase by $8.3 billion.
Ontario’s integrity commissioner is considering a request to investigate if Amato broke any ethics rules after a referral from the Ford. That request is in addition to a separate investigation the office is conducting related to the Greenbelt land swaps at the request of NDP Leader Marit Stiles.
OTTAWA – The New Democrats confirmed Thursday they won’t help Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives topple the government next week, and intend to join the Bloc Québécois in blocking the Tories’ non-confidence motion.
The planned votes from the Bloc and the New Democrats eliminate the possibility of a snap election, buying the Liberals more time to govern after a raucous start to the fall sitting of Parliament.
Poilievre issued a challenge to NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh earlier this week when he announced he will put forward a motion that simply states that the House has no confidence in the government or the prime minister.
If it were to pass, it would likely mean Canadians would be heading to the polls, but Singh said Thursday he’s not going to let Poilievre tell him what to do.
Voting against the Conservative motion doesn’t mean the NDP support the Liberals, said Singh, who pulled out of his political pact with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a few weeks ago.
“I stand by my words, Trudeau has let you down,” Singh said in the foyer outside of the House of Commons Thursday.
“Trudeau has let you down and does not deserve another chance.”
Canadians will have to make that choice at the ballot box, Singh said, but he will make a decision about whether to help trigger that election on a vote-by-vote basis in the House.
The Conservatives mocked the NDP during Question Period for saying they had “ripped up” the deal to support the Liberals, despite plans to vote to keep them in power.
Poilievre accused Singh of pretending to pull out of the deal to sway voters in a federal byelection in Winnipeg, where the NDP was defending its long-held seat against the Conservatives.
“Once the votes were counted, he betrayed them again. He’s a fake, a phoney and fraud. How can anyone ever believe what the sellout NDP leader says in the future?” Poilievre said during Question Period Thursday afternoon.
At some point after those comments, Singh stepped out from behind his desk in the House and a two-minute shouting match ensued between the two leaders and their MPs before the Speaker intervened.
Outside the House, Poilievre said he plans to put forward another non-confidence motion at the next opportunity.
“We want a carbon-tax election as soon as possible, so that we can axe Trudeau’s tax before he quadruples it to 61 cents a litre,” he said.
Liberal House leader Karina Gould says there is much work the government still needs to do, and that Singh has realized the consequences of potentially bringing down the government. She refused to take questions about whether her government will negotiate with opposition parties to ensure their support in future confidence motions.
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet hasn’t ruled out voting no-confidence in the government the next time a motion is tabled.
“I never support Liberals. Help me God, I go against the Conservatives on a vote that is only about Pierre Poilievre and his huge ambition for himself,” Blanchet said Thursday.
“I support the interests of Quebecers, if those interests are also good for Canadians.”
A Bloc bill to increase pension cheques for seniors aged 65 to 74 is now at “the very centre of the survival of this government,” he said.
The Bloc needs a recommendation from a government minister to OK the cost and get the bill through the House.
The Bloc also wants to see more protections for supply management in the food sector in Canada and Quebec.
If the Liberals can’t deliver on those two things, they will fall, Blanchet said.
“This is what we call power,” he said.
Treasury Board President Anita Anand wouldn’t say whether the government would be willing to swallow the financial implications of the Bloc’s demands.
“We are focused at Treasury Board on ensuring prudent fiscal management,” she said Thursday.
“And at this time, our immediate focus is implementing the measures in budget 2024 that were announced earlier this year.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
OTTAWA – Treasury Board President Anita Anand has been sworn in as federal transport minister at a ceremony at Rideau Hall, taking over a portfolio left vacant after Pablo Rodriguez resigned from cabinet and the Liberal caucus on Thursday.
Anand thanked Rodriguez for his contributions to the government and the country, saying she’s grateful for his guidance and friendship.
She sidestepped a question about the message it sends to have him leave the federal Liberal fold.
“That is a decision that he made independently, and I wish him well,” she said.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was not present for the swearing-in ceremony, nor were any other members of the Liberal government.
The shakeup in cabinet comes just days after the Liberals lost a key seat in a Montreal byelection to the Bloc Québécois and amid renewed calls for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to step down and make way for a new leader.
Anand said she is not actively seeking leadership of the party, saying she is focused on her roles as minister and as MP.
“My view is that we are a team, and we are a team that has to keep delivering for our country,” she said.
The minority Liberal government is in a more challenging position in the House of Commons after the NDP ended a supply-and-confidence deal that provided parliamentary stability for more than two years.
Non-confidence votes are guaranteed to come from the Opposition Conservatives, who are eager to bring the government down.
On Thursday morning, Rodriguez made a symbolic walk over the Alexandra Bridge from Parliament Hill to Gatineau, Que., where he formally announced his plans to run for the Quebec Liberal party leadership.
He said he will now sit as an Independent member of Parliament, which will allow him to focus on his own priorities.
“I was defending the priorities of the government, and I did it in a very loyal way,” he said.
“It’s normal and it’s what I had to do. But now it’s more about my vision, the vision of the team that I’m building.”
Rodriguez said he will stay on as an MP until the Quebec Liberal leadership campaign officially launches in January.
He said that will “avoid a costly byelection a few weeks, or months, before a general election.”
The next federal election must be held by October 2025.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said he will try to topple the government sooner than that, beginning with a non-confidence motion that is set to be debated Sept. 24 and voted on Sept. 25.
Poilievre has called on the NDP and the Bloc Québécois to support him, but both Jagmeet Singh and Yves-François Blanchet have said they will not support the Conservatives.
Rodriguez said he doesn’t want a federal election right away and will vote against the non-confidence motion.
As for how he would vote on other matters before the House of Commons, “it would depend on the votes.”
Public Services and Procurement Minister Jean-Yves Duclos will become the government’s new Quebec lieutenant, a non-cabinet role Rodriguez held since 2019.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
— With files from Nojoud Al Mallees and Dylan Robertson
