Ontario’s integrity commissioner and auditor general both announced Wednesday that they would conduct separate investigations into the government’s decision to open protected Greenbelt lands up to housing development.
The integrity commissioner is launching an investigation into Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark based on a complaint from incoming NDP leader Marit Stiles. She sought an investigation into what she calls “curious timing of recent purchases of Greenbelt land by powerful landowners with donor and political ties to the Ontario PC Party.”
Stiles cited media reports that some developers bought that land over the past few years despite Clark and the premier previously publicly saying it wouldn’t be developed, with one purchase happening as recently as September – two months before Clark announced he’d open the lands up….