Ontario announced Thursday that it would halt a much-criticized construction project on protected land in the green belt bordering Toronto, after a local minister and his chief of staff resigned amid accusations of favoritism.
3,000 hectares of this protected area located on the shores of Lake Ontario and bordering Canada’s largest city, were to become buildable to allow the construction of 50,000 housing units.
This land project, announced in 2022 by the Ontario government, provoked an outcry and was singled out by two independent reports, causing the resignation of several ministers and local officials.
The premier of the province, Doug Ford, initially defended this project, citing the urgent need for construction in response to the housing crisis affecting the city, before backpedaling.
“We went too quickly and we made the wrong decision,” he declared Thursday, apologizing and assuring that his government would “return the changes made” and “would not make any more changes to the belt green in the future.
Mr. Ford had already announced a review of the project in early September, admitting that the process “could and should have been better”.
A report from Ontario’s inspector general released in August called the land selection process “biased” and “favorable to certain developers.” Another from the integrity commissioner concluded that the housing minister had failed by failing to oversee the land selection process.
Both reports also noted that Ontario Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing’s former chief of staff, Steve Clark, was steering the process by favoring certain developers.
The opposition and environmental groups had called on the province to reverse course and restore protection status to the land in question.
From the rocky cliffs of Niagara to the agricultural plains of the west, the 810,000 hectares of green belt take the shape of a horseshoe around Toronto. These agricultural lands, among the most fertile in eastern Canada, have been protected since 2005.