The Ontario government’s defence of its indefensible deal to hand over thousands of hectares of protected land to favoured developers is one of the more disingenuous bits of political theatre in recent history.
What utter rot. Even if Mr. Ford is incapable of doing so himself, it’s easy to imagine a third choice; that is, spurring construction without shamelessly using the cover of the housing crisis to reward land speculation by favoured political supporters and donors. Ms. Lysyk said the short list of sites considered for removal was hand-fed to a cloistered team of public servants by Ryan Amato, the chief of staff to Housing Minister Steve Clark, and that 92 per cent of the land that ultimately benefited was recommended by two developers who had access to Mr. Amato.
All told, the developers whose lots were removed from the Greenbelt could see the value of their holdings increaseThis gerrymandering is completely unacceptable. The ends – quickly building more homes in a housing crisis – aren’t justified by their anti-democratic and unfair means.