Editor's note: Mr. Boileau writes this as an open letter to MPP Vic Fedeli and Premier Doug Ford. It refers to the BayToday story Integrity commissioner considering investigating housing minister's chief of staff.
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Dear Mr. Vic Fedeli,
My name is Andre Boileau. I live in Nipissing. This letter is to address my deep concern for what has come to light with Auditor General, Bonnie Lysyk’s report on the shenanigans going on at Steve Clark's Ministry.
To call it anything but nefarious would be dishonest, to yourself and to others. And I am being polite.
For those reading this, I will attempt to elaborate.
Steve Clark is the housing minister under Doug Ford. With the suggestion of 1.5 million new homes needed over the next 10 years, the housing affordability task force recommended to the premier that he advocate for houses to be built. And for the last little while, he has been saying this is needed. While I agree homes are needed, houses are not. More on this later.
Steve Clark’s Chief of Staff Ryan Amato was wined and dined by a couple of developers in mid-September 2022, and they suggested to him that large tracts of land have their greenbelt protection withdrawn. Once the protection of these lands was removed, sometime in September 2022, these developers snatched up these parcels of land. In at least one of the cases, the land was purchased the day before Mr. Amato proposed the removal of this land from the greenbelt. Huh!!!
These developers were, coincidentally contributors to the Ontario Conservative Party. This too should be a red flag for all to see, and again more on this later. We all should be outraged! I know I am.
Most of these sites are in the hinterlands of the Greenbelt. They are adjacent to proposed highways that are intended to run through this greenbelt. In order to shorten the commute times of pickup trucks and SUV-driving southern Ontario residents. But more highways don’t mean less commute times. This too I will talk about later as well.
There are other sites in Hamilton, Ottawa, and even in the Niagara Region, but they too are under the microscope. The city of Hamilton was forced by the province to expand its boundaries despite overwhelming support from the council and residents to keep it the way it is. A 2021 council decision was overturned by Doug Ford in favour of expanding the boundaries to include sites Minister Clark, or perhaps Mr. Amato wanted to be developed.
The interesting thing about this is none of these sites match what has been proposed by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. This ministry had allocated the entirety of the supplies needed to reach its target for 1.5 million homes in October 2022 and no lands would need removal from the sensitive greenbelt. Others, such as the Regional Planning Commissioners of Ontario and Environmental Defence have also tabled reports suggesting lands that are already within city boundaries and are otherwise unused or derelict could serve the purpose. Brownfields that could be rezoned and lands made vacant by neglected buildings torn down.
With the federal government immigration targets, and the need for affordable housing in the city, homes, new or otherwise are in desperately short supply.
Next a bill was proposed and passed, the Build Homes Faster Act, Bill 23. Sounds good, right? Not so fast,(pardon the pun). I have some very strong opinions on this but again more on this in a bit.
A Ford promise was that he wouldn’t touch the Greenbelt. He made this promise in 2020. But the government pushed to build houses and suddenly it reverses course and freed up big parcels of land along the greenbelt for development.
Who’s land? Well, land owned by these developers. Huh!!!
Who made these decisions? Ryan Amato. Did Steve Clark or Doug Ford know? When initially questioned by Bonnie Lysyk and her people Steve Clark said he was unaware of what Ryan Amato was doing on the file. Neither of them has said affirmatively to date that they were aware of what Mr. Amato was doing. If they didn’t, should they have known? I would think so! Huh!!!
Who’s minding the store?
So, this Ryan Amato guy is allowed to make arbitrary decisions about how to proceed with changes to the Greenbelt. What changes will be made, how and when, and who will benefit from these changes. Not only did he make these changes, but he would also move the target set by public services, other ministries, and conservation authorities to fit these sites or to get around regulations. Environmental protocol was changed or discarded, and decisions would be made by him without consulting Mr. Clark or Mr. Ford. He forced public servants to sign confidentiality agreements preventing them from getting information from municipalities, and other ministries. He gave these groups three weeks to do the work needed and the confidentiality agreements also kept them from speaking about this to the media.
The terrible thing about all of this is that this guy isn’t even an elected official. He’s a back-room party hack. A bureaucrat who should be giving advice and doing what he is told by his minister, not setting policy and doing whatever he wants.
As a Canadian voter and a fierce follower of politics in this country, I am frankly getting sick and tired of these unelected party hacks and policy wonks fowling up the works or opening up their big mouths. These people are accountable to no one, certainly not the Canadian voter. Bert Chan and what he did to Erin O’Toole rings a bell. Mr. Amato’s head should roll as far as I am concerned. He can find something else to do. He can’t be trusted to work for the public.
With all the serviced land the housing task force recommended there should be no reason why sensitive lands, farmlands, or wildlands should be developed. Municipalities would be asked to build and maintain water and sewer to these sprawling single-family developments. The developer would walk away from these costs after they have made all of their money. These developments are bankrupting municipalities.
The most important aspect of all of this is that we are supposed to be getting away from car centred society.
Indeed. Better to build medium to low-density housing on already serviced lots, in city centres, close to public transit and amenities. Build affordable housing for people that need a home, not a house.
Doug Ford was elected in the spring of 2018. He campaigned on a policy of ending cronyism. I would say it to him then, and I will say it to him now, be careful what you say about political cronyism. It comes in many different stripes. If you are serious about it, Mr. Ford then end it. Or is only Liberal Cronyism the boogie man? Conservative Cronyism is still cronyism. You clearly haven’t put a stop to it.
As I mentioned before, we as a society are supposed to be getting away from developing 'car centre' culture. For the health of the planet, the people who live on it, and the creatures we share this globe of rock with, we should be taking this seriously. The idea of building these highways to shorten a commute doesn’t work. It is a time-worn adage, if you build it, they will come. More highways don’t mean a better commute. It means more users. The average car trip is less than 5 kilometres or something like it. Building these highways next to sprawling single-family housing developments only means those highways fill up with more people in cars.
Indeed, medium to high-density development within the city on already serviced lands, close to amenities, and people living in these developments take fewer trips in their cars. The 15-minute community should be the goal of the province.
So why should a northern Ontario flunky like me care?
Well, because this greenbelt contains some of the best farmland, and the most sensitive wildlands, and is meant to prevent the urban sprawl of the poison horseshoe. Once this sensitive land is paved over for houses or for a factory or warehouse for that matter, it will never be a farm or a wildland again.
In 50 or 100 years, when our progeny are looking back and wondering why we took the decision we did, I am sure they will be asking themselves why we would think it a good idea to take a farm and turn it into a housing development. They could certainly live in the house, but what would they have to eat?
And that’s my breeze from the cheap seats!
Andre Boileau.
Nipissing.
