The Greenbelt scandal is the editorial gift that keeps on giving — because the story never dies. Yet that gift comes with a cost. The integrity of the province’s governance is undermined each time we learn disappointing-but-not-surprising new details about who did what and when. Trust in government is compromised each time we discover that staffers didn’t follow rules or that irregular processes replaced regular ones.
Most recently, Ontarians learned that Premier Doug Ford’s office seems to have been “far more involved” in Greenbelt shenanigans than we had been led to believe. Throughout the scandal, Ford has maintained that he had little to no involvement in the machinations that brought about the land-swap deal and led, eventually, to a reversal and reassessment of the policy and the processes that brought it about. His defence, thus far, amounts to “Don’t ask me — I’m just the premier.”
The news that Ford’s office might have known more about the plan to open protected land for development isn’t surprising. The New Democratic Party obtained the documents by way of access-to-information filings, which means the paper trail was always there. It seems that someone in Ford’s office must have missed some emails when the auditor general and others were asking about precisely what happened and when. Oops.
Now it seems that certain bits of testimony may be inconsistent with what documents reveal to be true, though much depends on who read or didn’t read what, and when. The NDP is calling for yet another investigation based on the emails, and the integrity commissioner is on it.
There’s obviously more digging to be done, more interviews that ought to be conducted. One presumes that future resignations may be in order. But we’ll see. The fact that staffers used private email servers also raises questions that haven’t yet been given proper answers. The public deserves answers. The RCMP probe into the scandal, launched in October, is ongoing.
TVO Today Explainer: What is the Greenbelt?
Ford continues to maintain he knew nothing about any of this. That’s his usual line. It’s a bit of “Aww, shucks” stuffed in a goofy smile and delivered with a shrug. After all, what do you expect the premier to do? Be aware of his government’s wheelings and dealings with protected land?
Still, the premier says there’s nothing to see here with the newly revealed emails. No “net new information” is the line they’re going with. Well, if you say so.
In the fall, Ford, once caught, admitted a sort of culpability: “I made a promise to you that I wouldn’t touch the Greenbelt,” he said. “I broke that promise.”
The broken promise is a small part of a bigger issue. The more we learn about the Greenbelt affair, the more we wonder just where the premier was on the matter and how staff were left to go feral on the file.
Reports from the auditor general and the integrity commissioner paint a bleak picture of how the government is run — and by whom. At the same time, Ford seems, at best, to be an absentee premier. If it’s indeed true, as Ford maintains, that he was mostly out of the loop on the Greenbelt plans — much like then-housing minister Steve Clark seems to have been — we’re left to wonder why these elected members of the legislature and core members of the executive were AWOL.
The inconsistencies between the government’s previous claims and this written record further prove that Ford’s PCs are at best out of their depth and, at worse, something far more sinister.
Running a government is a complicated thing. No process will be perfect. No staffer will catch every last detail. No member of cabinet, the premier included, will read, comprehend, and recall every detail of every file. It can’t be done. That’s why efficient, transparent, competent, public-spirited, and above-board processes are so important. Good processes, undertaken in good faith, produce good policy, accountability, and governance. With every bit of news we get about the Greenbelt affair, we learn more that the Ford government is allergic to good processes and seemingly committed to bad policies and the wretched outcomes they produce.
The Greenbelt scandal is not over. It won’t be over for some time. There’s more to come, and the smart money is on the fact that what’s to come will reveal nothing good about Ford’s government. One hopes, at least, that in the long run we’ll get answers, accountability from the top — and, if we’re very lucky, a new government.
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