Ontario’s minister of housing Steve Clark listens as Doug Ford speaks during a press conference in Mississauga, Ont., on Aug. 11, 2023.Cole Burston/The Canadian Press
The RCMP is interviewing current and former staffers in the office of Ontario Premier Doug Ford as potential witnesses for its criminal investigation into the government’s rescinded move to allow housing development on the province’s protected Greenbelt lands.
Grace Lee, a spokesperson for Mr. Ford, confirmed in an e-mailed statement on Friday that interviews with aides and former staffers were “currently under way.” She said detectives had not asked to interview Mr. Ford. And she directed other questions to the RCMP, which did not respond to a request for comment.
Asked on Friday at an appearance in Thunder Bay about the investigation, Mr. Ford reiterated his past commitment to co-operate with police.
“I’ve always said we’re co-operating with them. We have nothing to hide,” Mr. Ford said. “You know, come in, do whatever you have to do … But I want full co-operation. They know that. Because there’s nothing to hide there. Let’s get going on it.”
The interviews, first reported by the Toronto Star, were the first public signs of activity in the investigation launched at least 10 months ago by the RMCP’s sensitive and international investigations unit, whose detectives handle corruption, fraud and breach-of-trust or illegal lobbying allegations, among other matters.
News of the probe emerged last October, just weeks after Mr. Ford abandoned his repeated and vehement defences of the Greenbelt plan, which he had said was needed to mitigate the housing crisis, and ordered it reversed. The climbdown came after months of controversy and the resignation of two cabinet ministers and three senior political aides.
Calls for a police investigation from opposition politicians and other government critics had mounted after the province’s then-auditor-general issued a report last August concluding that the selection of the 3,000 hectares of land the government removed from the protected Greenbelt was “biased” and had handed $8.3-billion in increased land values to a handful of developers with connections to the Ford government.
In a separate report, the province’s Integrity Commissioner said Mr. Ford’s then-housing-minister, Steve Clark, had violated the rules that govern MPPs for failing to oversee his chief of staff, Ryan Amato, and the “chaotic and almost reckless” way Mr. Amato chose Greenbelt lands for removal. Overseeing a small group of civil servants, Mr. Amato received proposals for land removals directly from prominent developers at an industry banquet and had bureaucrats alter or scrap environmental and other criteria to evaluate them.
Mr. Amato resigned. Mr. Clark quit his cabinet post, but he remained a Progressive Conservative MPP. Mr. Ford made him government House Leader in his cabinet shuffle in June.
Last August, the Ontario Provincial Police anti-rackets squad, after considering its own investigation, referred alleged “irregularities” in the Greenbelt process to the RCMP, citing a “perceived conflict of interest” that the OPP, which provides the Premier’s personal security, did not explain.
The Greenbelt is an 800,000-hectare arc of protected farmland and countryside around the Greater Toronto Area created by the previous Liberal government in 2005, and it is meant to contain sprawl and preserve ecologically sensitive and agricultural lands.
Before he announced his plan to carve out areas from the Greenbelt in the fall of 2022, Mr. Ford had repeatedly promised to protect it. The Liberal Party had circulated a video of him pledging to hand a “big chunk” of the land to developers during the 2018 election campaign, prompting an outcry and his first pledge not to touch it.
Media outlets, including The Globe and Mail, have reported that some of the lands removed from the Greenbelt had changed hands after Mr. Ford was first elected in 2018 and, in one case, less than two months before the plan was announced – prompting questions from opposition politicians whether some developers were tipped off.
On Friday, opposition politicians seized on word that the RCMP probe was moving ahead. NDP Leader Marit Stiles said the Ford government has shown it favours wealthy developers over everyday people. She said Ontarians “deserve a government” that “isn’t under criminal investigation.”
Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie issued a statement saying it was a sad day for Ontarians.
“The RCMP is inside the Premier’s office investigating just how far Ford and his government were willing to go to give away the Greenbelt and help their friends make off with $8.3-billion,” she said. “This is a sad day for the people of Ontario, who deserve and need so much more than a government embroiled in criminal investigation.”