Mississauga East-Cooksville MPP Kaleed Rasheed has resigned from cabinet and the Ontario Progressive Conservative caucus in the wake of an integrity commissioner probe into the province’s Greenbelt land swap.
Rasheed’s resignation comes after reporting from CTV and the Trillium questioned the timeline about a trip to Las Vegas.
In his investigation into the controversial decision to open portions of Ontario’s protected Greenbelt land to housing development, the province’s integrity commissioner interviewed Rasheed about the trip after the Trillium reported that Rasheed travelled there with Amin Massoudi, then Ford’s principal secretary, at the same time as developer Shakir Rehmatullah.
Rehmatullah’s company owns land that was among the parcels removed from the Greenbelt in November 2022 for housing development. Rehmatullah is the founder and president of Markham, Ont.-based Flato Developments, which was behind three successful requests to remove land from the Greenbelt in Markham and Whitchurch-Stouffville last fall, according to the province’s integrity commissioner.
Rasheed, Massoudi and Jae Truesdell — at the time in the private sector but who now serves as Ford’s director of housing policy — told the integrity commissioner they went to Las Vegas in December 2019. Rasheed and Massoudi “briefly encountered” Rehmatullah there, they said.
Shakir Rehmatullah is founder and president of Markham, Ont.-based Flato Developments. He was named as one of the developers who benefitted from the Ford government’s Greenbelt land swap. (Flato Developments/YouTube)
Massoudi told the integrity commissioner he had only met Rehmatullah a handful of times, including at the wedding of Ford’s daughter. Rasheed said he and Rehmatullah are close friends and Rasheed’s wife worked for the developer.
Rehmatullah said he was in Las Vegas in December 2019 and late January to early February 2020 and recalled seeing Rasheed in a hotel lobby on one of the trips.
MPP to ‘take the steps required’ to clear his name
CTV News reported this week that Rasheed, Rehmatullah and Massoudi got massages on Feb. 1, 2020 at the same Las Vegas hotel spa. A spokesperson for Rasheed told the outlet the trip was originally booked for December 2019 but got rescheduled and Rasheed “mistakenly” shared incorrect information with the integrity commissioner based on the original itinerary.
In a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, Rasheed, who served as minister of public and business service delivery, said he will continue to serve his constituents.
“While incredibly difficult, this decision was made so as not to distract from the important work of the government,” he said in the statement, adding he will “take the steps required” to clear his name.
In a separate statement, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said himself and Rasheed have “agreed” to the resignation, effective immediately.
“If Mr. Rasheed can clear his name through the Office of the Integrity Commissioner, he will be provided an opportunity to return to caucus,” reads Ford’s statement.
“A new Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery will be named in the coming days.”
Ford acknowledges Greenbelt land swap process was flawed
Ontario Premier Doug Ford says his government will ‘re-evaluate’ a land swap of protected lands surrounding Toronto that two separate reviews said were flawed. However, the premier insisted development will move ahead if the sites in the area known as the Greenbelt ‘stand on their own merit.’
Rasheed’s resignation comes on the heels of another resignation, that of Housing Minister Steve Clark, who stepped down after weeks of pushback from political opponents over his involvement in the Greenbelt controversy. Weeks earlier, Clark’s chief of staff Ryan Amato, who played a key role in choosing and opening up Greenbelt land for housing development, resigned as well.
The province has said it undertook the land swaps, while adding protected land elsewhere, to lead to the construction of 50,000 homes in service of its goal of building 1.5 million new homes in the next decade.
In a statement, Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said Rasheed’s resignation is just “scratching the surface” of the Ford government’s “corruption crisis.”
“This government is spiralling out of control. Mr. Ford needs to answer for that,” said Stiles.
Interim leader for the Ontario Liberals John Fraser said in a statement that Ford’s former press secretary Massoudi and his current director of housing Truesdell were both on the same trip “at the centre” of Rasheed’s resignation.
“All roads lead to the Premier’s office in this $8.3 billion backroom deal that benefited Doug Ford’s friends and fundraisers,” said Fraser.
Ontario Green Leader Mike Schreiner said in a statement that Ontarians have had “enough of broken promises and empty apologies.”
“Distraction and denial won’t deliver accountability to the people of Ontario,” said Schreiner.
He called for all Greenbelt land to be “fully protected” and for a public inquiry into the Ford government’s Greenbelt land swap.
“Ontarians have questions — it’s time for the Premier to face the music and provide honest answers.”
Experts say Greenbelt scandal may not be over
Zac Spicer, an associate professor at the School of Public Policy and Administration at York University, told CBC Toronto on Wednesday that the resignation clears the air “a little bit” for the government but the scandal may not be over.
“We don’t know how many other cabinet ministers may have had interactions with different developers and people who are close to them,” Spicer said.
Spicer said he thinks the government is probably eager to get back to its agenda and move away from the scandal.
“I think what the government wants to do is get back to talking about housing, building more housing and talking about the tools that are necessary to get that done. We’ll have to see what happens if this is the end of it, ” he said.
Matti Siemiatycki, a professor of geography and planning at the University of Toronto, said every time the government tries to move on from Greenbelt scandal, new information comes out that raises more questions about what exactly has happened here and the magnitude of decisions made about the Greenbelt.
“This scandal keeps ticking on. They’ve tried to turn the page. There’s a new chief of staff, new minister, now another new minister. And yet there’s still so many unanswered questions.”
Siemiatycki said there needs to be a public airing of all the information that went into the Greenbelt decision and the land needs to be put back into the Greenbelt to ensure it is not touched in perpetuity.
“We really need to know much more about what happened here.”
Vancouver Canucks winger Dakota Joshua has announced he’ll miss the start of training camp following surgery for testicular cancer.
Joshua said in a statement posted to social media by the team Tuesday that he felt a lump on one of his testicles this summer and later had surgery to successfully remove the tumour.
The 28-year-old from Dearborn, Mich., said he plans on returning to play “as soon as possible” and is “working hard every day” to rejoin his teammates.
Joshua said the last several weeks have been “extremely challenging” and encouraged men to get checked regularly for testicular cancer.
The six-foot-three, 206-pound forward had a career-high 18 goals and 14 assists in 63 games for the Canucks last season and signed a new four-year, US$13-million deal with Vancouver at the end of June.
The Canucks are set to open their training camp in Penticton, B.C., on Thursday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
TORONTO – Coach John Herdman isn’t putting too much stock in the fact that Toronto FC, since losing 4-0 in Columbus on July 6, has posted a better league record than the defending MLS champion.
Toronto, which beat visiting Austin 2-1 on Saturday, has won four of six league outings (4-2-0) since that setback at Lower.com Field while the Crew are 3-2-2.
“I don’t put any credence (in that),” said Herdman. “I just look at their squad and I salivate.”
Its easy to see why.
Columbus provided a league-high five players to the MLS all-star game on its home field in July in defenders Rudy Camacho and Steven Moreira, midfielder/captain Darlington Nagbe and forwards Cucho Hernandez and Diego Rossi.
Herdman sees layers of talent behind those all-stars.
“You see the way that they’re able to almost carbon-copy players. One comes in, another goes out … and they feel like they have a very similar profile. So to be able to take (Christian) Ramirez out and then bring (Canadian forward Jacen) Russell-Rowe in as a power forward, you look and go ‘Whoa, that’s good to have.'”
Federico Bernardeschi was Toronto’s lone all-star.
Columbus (14-5-8) comes to BMO Field on Wednesday in third place in the Eastern Conference, five places and 14 points ahead of Toronto (11-15-3). A playoff position already clinched, the Crew are hoping to leapfrog Cincinnati into second spot.
Coach Wilfried Nancy is looking forward to matching wits against Herdman.
“John is going to cook (up) something,” the Frenchman said with a belly laugh. “I know John. When we played a game in (the) pre-season, it wasn’t a pre-season game. It was a real game. But this is John. That’s why I like him, because he’s intense all the time.”
“They’re going to try to go all-in. They’re going to try to press us, they’re going to try to match us,” he added. “They know exactly the way we want to play so we’ll have to be clever and creative also.”
Herdman, meanwhile, says TFC will have to play error-free football.
While the Crew have failed to score in their last two outings (a 4-0 loss to visiting Seattle and 0-0 draw at rival FC Cincinnati), Toronto is hurting in its backline.
Nicksoen Gomis and Henry Wingo both left the Austin game early with hamstring injuries with Herdman estimating that Gomis will be out three to four weeks and Wingo 10-12 days. Veteran Kevin Long missed the Austin game after tweaking his hamstring in training and will undergo a fitness test ahead of the game.
Shane O’Neill, meanwhile, is suspended for yellow-card accumulation.
“A tricky situation,” said Herdman.
The Crew are a formidable opponent.
Columbus is tied with Real Salt Lake for fifth in the league in averaging 1.93 goals a game. Only Inter Miami (2.32), Portland Timbers (2.00), Los Angeles Galaxy (1.97) and Colorado Rapids (1.96) score more.
And Columbus boasts the league’s stingiest defence, conceding 1.04 goals a game. In contrast, the Toronto defence is tied for 22nd at 1.76 goals a game.
Toronto has conceded 51 goals, 23 more than Columbus, which has collected more points (7-3-4, 25 points) on the road in league play this season than Toronto has at home (7-7-0, 21 points).
Columbus’ roster also includes Canadian wingback Mo Farsi, who scored in the July win over Toronto.
The Columbus game is the first of four in an 11-day stretch that will see TFC club visit Colorado on Saturday, Vancouver on Sept. 25 in the Canadian Championship final and Chicago on Sept. 28. Toronto will then close out the regular season at home to the New York Red Bulls on Oct. 2 and Inter Miami on Oct. 5.
If the playoffs were to start tomorrow, Toronto would face ninth-place D.C. United in a wild-card matchup with the winner advancing to take on the East’s top seed — currently Miami — in the best-of-three first round.
Herdman would like a different scenario, with his eyes set on overtaking seventh-place Charlotte, which has two points and a game in hand over Toronto. The seventh-place side takes on No. 2 — currently Cincinnati — in the first round.
“We’re looking up, not down at the moment,” said Herdman. “It’s a good motivation for the lads to see that next level on the table. And it has been raised. If we’re able to get to that point, it means you’re not headed down to Miami in the heat, which is a tough place to go.”
“We’ll take whatever comes,” he added. “But the critical part is to get into these playoffs. That’s the key mission at the moment.”
Toronto has not made the post-season since 2020 when, after finishing second overall in the Supporters’ Shield standings, it was upset by Nashville after extra time at the first hurdle.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — The Miami Dolphins placed Tua Tagovailoa on injured reserve Tuesday after the quarterback was diagnosed with his third concussion in two years.
Tagovailoa will be sidelined for at least four games. He will be eligible to return in Week 8 when the Dolphins host Arizona, but has to complete a series of tests and assessments required by the NFL’s concussion protocol before he can return to the field.
Tagovailoa was hurt last Thursday night when he collided with Buffalo defensive back Damar Hamlin. He ran for a first down and then initiated the contact by lowering his shoulder into Hamlin instead of sliding.
Players from both teams immediately motioned that Tagovailoa was hurt, and as he lay on the turf the quarterback exhibited some signs typically associated with a traumatic brain injury. He remained down on the field for a couple of minutes, got to his feet and walked to the sideline. The Dolphins diagnosed him with a concussion a few minutes later.
Coach Mike McDaniel has since cautioned against speculation on the quarterback’s future, stressing that he’s more focused on Tagovailoa getting healthy than what this latest concussion means for the team or for his career. Tagovailoa this week began the process of consulting neurologists about his health amid reports that he has no plans to retire.
Others around the NFL have offered their opinions on Tagovailoa’s future, including Raiders coach Antonio Pierce, who suggested he should retire.
“As far as Tua’s career is concerned, I think it’s an utmost priority of mine for Tua to speak on Tua’s career,” McDaniel said Monday. “Reports are reports. As far as I’m concerned, I’m just worried about the human being and where that’s at day to day. I’ll let Tua be the champion of his own career.”
McDaniel said Tagovailoa was at the team’s practice facility on Monday, greeting teammates and working with trainers.
“He’s doing good, man. Talked to him, he’s in good spirits,” receiver Jaylen Waddle said Monday. “(He’s) got the team in good spirits and everybody praying for him and hoping (for his) health.”
Head injuries have become a familiar, scary occurrence throughout Tagovailoa’s career.
In a September 2022 game against the Bills, he took a hit from linebacker Matt Milano, which caused him to slam to the ground. He appeared disoriented afterward and stumbled as he tried to get to his feet. He was cleared to return to that game and later said it was a back injury that caused the stumble. He was not diagnosed with a concussion.
Four days later, he got hit again during a Thursday night game at Cincinnati in which he was briefly knocked unconscious and was taken off the field on a stretcher. As he lay on the turf, his fingers appeared to display the “fencing response,” an involuntary motion typically associated with a brain injury. That time, he was placed in the concussion protocol.
The NFL and the players’ union made changes to the concussion protocol after those two incidents with Tagovailoa. Players who have problems with balance or stability are now prohibited from returning to a game.
Tagovailoa briefly considered retirement, but instead returned and studied ways to better protect himself on the field, including taking jiu-jitsu classes ahead of the 2023 season.
Tagovailoa has said he spoke to numerous neurologists who told him they did not believe he would be more susceptible to head injuries than any other player moving forward, nor would he be at a higher risk for chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the brain disease associated with repeated blows to the head. He was also diagnosed with a concussion while in college at Alabama.
With Tagovailoa sidelined, the Dolphins will go with backup Skylar Thompson when play at Seattle on Sunday. Miami also signed Tyler Huntley off the Ravens’ practice squad.
