{"id":21567,"date":"2023-09-04T22:45:04","date_gmt":"2023-09-05T05:45:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/ontario-premier-shuffles-cabinet-after-housing-minister-resigns\/"},"modified":"2023-09-04T22:45:05","modified_gmt":"2023-09-05T05:45:05","slug":"ontario-premier-shuffles-cabinet-after-housing-minister-resigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/ontario-premier-shuffles-cabinet-after-housing-minister-resigns\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario Premier shuffles cabinet after housing minister resigns"},"content":{"rendered":"

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TORONTO \u2013 Ontario Premier Doug\u00a0Ford\u00a0shuffled his cabinet on Monday, hours after his embattled housing minister stepped down from his post.<\/p>\n

Steve Clark resigned earlier in the day after a scathing report from the province\u2019s integrity commissioner found he violated ethics rules when Ontario opened up parts of the protected Greenbelt for development<\/p>\n

Taking his spot is Paul Calandra, who was the long-term care minister. Calandra will remain as Government House Leader, while Stan Cho succeeds him as long-term care minister.<\/p>\n

Caroline Mulroney moves on to become president of the Treasury Board, and Prabmeet Sarkaria takes over her role as transportation minister. Mulroney remains responsible for Francophone affairs.<\/p>\n

Ford\u00a0said he has a \u201crenewed team\u201d in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll never stop working on behalf of the people of Ontario to build the homes, highways and public transit our growing communities need,\u201d\u00a0Ford\u00a0said in a statement Monday evening.<\/p>\n

Clark resigned just days after\u00a0Ford\u00a0backed him to continue on as housing minister.<\/p>\n

Official Opposition New Democrat Leader Marit Stiles called the new cabinet a \u201cslapdash team.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMr.\u00a0Ford\u00a0can rearrange the deck chairs all he likes but it\u2019s not going to change the fact that Ontarians are fed up with a corrupt government rigging the system to help a select few of their insiders get even richer \u2013 at everyone else\u2019s expense,\u201d Stiles said.<\/p>\n

Last year, the province took about 2,995 hectares of land out of the Greenbelt to build 50,000 homes and replaced them with about 3,804 hectares elsewhere.<\/p>\n

The moves were part of the government\u2019s pledge to address the housing crisis by promising to build 1.5 million homes over 10 years.<\/p>\n

Two investigations into the Greenbelt land swap found the selection process was hasty and flawed, and favoured certain developers over others.<\/p>\n

Ford\u00a0has admitted to the poor selection process, but has otherwise said he did nothing wrong.<\/p>\n

Both the integrity commissioner and the auditor general found Clark\u2019s chief of staff, Ryan Amato, selected 14 of the 15 sites that were removed from the protected Greenbelt.<\/p>\n

Integrity Commissioner J. David Wake found neither Clark nor\u00a0Ford\u00a0knew what Amato was up to.<\/p>\n

He said Clark chose to \u201cstick his head in the sand\u201d after assigning the Greenbelt file to Amato.<\/p>\n

Ford\u00a0directed Clark in a mandate letter to look at a process to open up the Greenbelt shortly after the Progressive Conservatives\u2019 big win in last year\u2019s election.<\/p>\n

\u00a92023 THE CANADIAN PRESS<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n