NDP releases thousands of pages of government documents revealing new details in Greenbelt scheme

QUEEN’S PARK — The Ontario NDP is publicly releasing nearly 4,000 pages of government records that the NDP believes provide further evidence about the Ford government’s corrupt Greenbelt scheme.

Obtained via Freedom of Information request from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, the documents reveal Ford government officials covering their tracks and concealing their intentions to give preferential treatment to certain speculators as they planned to remove 7,400 acres of land from the Greenbelt. The documents also point to officials in the Premier’s office having greater involvement in the Greenbelt scheme than was previously disclosed.

On Monday, NDP MPPs will question the Auditor General and ministry officials at a Public Accounts Committee hearing to review the AG’s special report on the government’s changes to the Greenbelt.

The FOI records include the following revelations:

• The Premier's Stakeholder Relations director, Carlo Oliviero, was invited to a July 2022 meeting with the lobbyist of a developer whose lands were later removed from the Greenbelt. The meeting was arranged through the Stakeholder Relations director's personal email account.
• Text messages show that Ryan Amato met with Patrick Sackville on Oct. 20 to discuss the Central Pickering Development Plan, the revocation of which was necessary to allow development within the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve (DRAP) in the Greenbelt. When the revocation was later announced, on Oct. 25, the Ford government falsely claimed the DRAP would continue to be protected, even though ministry officials were working to remove these protections.
• Days after Greenbelt developer Shakir Rehmatullah attended Doug Ford’s daughter’s wedding, ministry staffers were tasked with researching a proposal that would allow Rehmatullah’s Greenbelt property in Nobelton to be developed, deeming it a “priority project.”