Amid Ontario’s Greenbelt controversy, the resignation of the housing minister’s chief of staff continues to resonate.
But Ryan Amato is confessing to nothing.
In his resignation letter to Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark last Tuesday, obtained by Global News, Amato said his role in the Greenbelt decision has been “unfairly depicted” and suggested he would be vindicated in any investigation.
“I am confident that I have acted appropriately, and that a fair and complete investigation would reach the same conclusion,” Amato wrote in his letter.
“However, these public statements have made it impossible, as a practical matter, for me to continue in my present role,” Amato said. “I hereby resign effective immediately from my role as Chief of Staff to Minister Clark.”
A bombshell report by Ontario’s auditor general Bonnie Lysyk put Amato at the centre of the Ford government’s controversial decision to allow development on 7,400 acres of former Greenbelt land.
The report said Amato had picked all but one parcel of land that was ultimately removed from the Greenbelt. It also explained how influential developers handed Amato packages with information on the lands they wanted to see removed.
“I do not wish to be a distraction from the Government of Ontario’s important work in getting More Homes Built Faster,” Amato’s letter said, before thanking Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Clark for formerly appointing him to the job.
The day after the Ford government announced Amato’s resignation, investigators with the RCMP said they were taking over a potential probe into the Greenbelt controversy to avoid the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) being accused of conflict.
The OPP, which had been reviewing several complaints from the public about the Ford government since late 2022, said they had sent the file to the RCMP “to avoid any potential perceived conflict of interest.”
So, it is there it now sits.
The report said Amato had picked all but one parcel of land that was ultimately removed from the Greenbelt. It also explained how influential developers handed Amato packages with information on the lands they wanted to see removed.
The report also heavily criticized the process in which decisions regarding the Greenbelt’s development were made, indicating that it “favoured certain developers,” lacked transparency and failed to take factors such as environmental, agricultural and financial impacts into consideration.
The process for determining which sites would be cut from the Greenbelt took place within a strict three-week timeline, which the auditor general says was implemented by Amato.
The report also suggested that certain criteria for the sites were altered when it was determined that most of the sites would not fit the set parameters.
According to Lysyk, the decision by Amato will see the land value of those chosen sites increase by $8.28 billion.
“We’re correcting the process,” Ford said. “I’m first to admit the process could have been better.”
The process, according to the auditor’s report, involved developers handing “packages” directly to the Clark’s chief of staff with instructions on which specific lands to remove from the Greenbelt — instructions that were ultimately approved by Premier Ford and his cabinet.
Ford, once again, denied any personal knowledge of the communications between political staff and developers.
“You get stuff put in front of you before cabinet, which I did. My exact words cross the T’s dot the I’s [and] everything’s fine,” Ford said. “I can’t micromanage.”
When asked whether the Greenbelt deals amount to corruption, Ford said it was a “nasty thing to say.”
“I’m trying to build homes, that’s my intention,” Ford said.
