{"id":21174,"date":"2023-08-25T15:31:58","date_gmt":"2023-08-25T22:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/ford-confident-rcmp-will-find-no-criminality-in-greenbelt-land-swap\/"},"modified":"2023-08-25T15:31:59","modified_gmt":"2023-08-25T22:31:59","slug":"ford-confident-rcmp-will-find-no-criminality-in-greenbelt-land-swap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/ford-confident-rcmp-will-find-no-criminality-in-greenbelt-land-swap\/","title":{"rendered":"Ford ‘confident’ RCMP will find no criminality in Greenbelt land swap"},"content":{"rendered":"

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TORONTO \u2014 Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Friday he\u2019s confident that nothing criminal took place in his government\u2019s process of removing land from the protected Greenbelt for housing development.<\/p>\n

Ford took questions for the first time since the housing minister\u2019s chief of staff resigned this week and the RCMP announced that it would weigh the available evidence and decide whether an investigation is warranted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they decide to investigate \u2013 they haven\u2019t decided yet \u2013 but if they do, I take it very serious, extremely serious, and I have zero tolerance if there was any nonsense going on,\u201d he said Friday.<\/p>\n

Ford said he is \u201cconfident\u201d there was no criminality.<\/p>\n

A report this month from the auditor general found that the chief of staff to Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark selected most of the sites that were removed from the\u00a0Greenbelt\u00a0for housing, rather than a team of civil servants struck for that purpose.<\/p>\n

The auditor also said that developers who had access to chief of staff Ryan Amato at an industry event wound up with 92 per cent of the land and the property owners of the 15 sites removed from the\u00a0Greenbelt\u00a0stand to see their land rise in value by $8.3 billion.<\/p>\n

Ford and Clark have said they didn\u2019t know how the sites were selected, which opposition politicians have said defies belief. Ford explained Friday that he was unaware of the details when he signed off on the plan at a cabinet meeting because he believes in delegating.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get stuff put in front of you before cabinet, which I did, my exact words (were), \u2018Cross the T\u2019s, dot the I\u2019s, everything\u2019s fine,\u2019\u201d Ford said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t micromanage one of the largest \u2013 I call it a corporation \u2013 one of the largest corporations in North America of $204 billion of revenue, hundreds of thousands of employees, a GDP over a trillion dollars and micromanage every single person. I don\u2019t believe in micromanaging.\u201d<\/p>\n

NDP Leader Marit Stiles said Ford\u2019s certainty that there was no criminality doesn\u2019t jibe with his assertion that he was unaware of the details.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s so confident, and yet he says he doesn\u2019t know anything,\u201d she said. \u201cSo which is it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2023 The Canadian Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n