Ontario premier won’t back away from plans to build on protected Greenbelt

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he will not back away from plans to build on the protected Greenbelt despite a damning auditor general report and experts saying his housing targets can be met by building elsewhere.

Ford says no one received preferential treatment in the process to open the Greenbelt to housing construction, despite Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk concluding the process was biased and favoured certain developers with ties to the housing minister.

“We need to make sure they build those homes and that’s a message to the people, the landowners that have these properties. You don’t get shovels in the ground, we don’t see progression rapidly, that land’s going back in the Greenbelt,” he said at a news conference about additional provincial funding for supportive housing in Mississauga, Ont.

Lysyk found a few prominent developers who already owned land in the protected Greenbelt had received preferential treatment. 

“No one had preferential treatment,” Ford said.

WATCH | Ford says no one received preferential treatment:

Ford disagrees that developers were given preferential treatment on Greenbelt land swapsAfter a scathing auditor general’s report which found Ontario’s decision to open up protected Greenbelt lands for housing was heavily influenced by a small group of developers, Premier Doug Ford said at a news conference Friday the government is “trying to build the 50,000 homes for people that need it.”

Last year, the Ford government opened up 7,400 acres of the Greenbelt to development while adding about 9,400 acres elsewhere as part of its bid to build 1.5 million homes across the province.

Ford wants to see 50,000 homes built on the former Greenbelt lands.

Local planners in the three regions where the land was removed, along with the province’s housing task force, say the land is not needed to meet housing construction targets, Lysyk noted in her report.

Ford claimed that was based on outdated information, referring to the task force’s report from February 2022.

Ford admitted that the process of selecting which lands would be removed from the Greenbelt for development was flawed and pledged that his government would act on 14 of Lysyk’s 15 recommendations.

Ford listens as Ontario’s minister of housing Steve Clark speaks during a press conference in Mississauga on Friday. ( The Canadian Press/Cole Burston)

The recommendation that his government would disregard is Lysyk’s