I would like to bring this government’s attention to what is happening outside the silo of Queen’s Park. Outside these doors, Ontarians are really struggling, more than we’ve seen in, I think, generations. They’re struggling with the steep increase in rent, mortgage, groceries, gas. Basic necessities are feeling like a burden. People even with two, three jobs are lining up at food banks. Ontarians are worried that homelessness is around the corner for them—and many more are experiencing that first-hand. Wages aren’t going as far as they used to. Mental health supports aren’t keeping up with demand.

These are the stories that I’ve heard, whether I was meeting Ontarians right here in Toronto or in Peterborough or Sudbury or Kitchener or Kapuskasing. I’ve seen and felt the same stress and helplessness all across the province.

But instead of offering hope that things can be better, instead of taking action to change things, this government has been busy lurching from scandal to scandal. They’ve been busy helping their friends instead of helping the people who need it most. We’re talking about a massive land transfer—a land transfer scheme that would make their friends and donors of their party billions of dollars richer. And the people of this province, of any political stripe, cannot swallow this.

Mr. Speaker, what’s worse is that this government essentially used the housing crisis as a scapegoat to cover up their greenbelt grab. It’s shameful. They had the audacity to tell weary Ontarians that they needed to carve up the greenbelt and give it to their friends so that they could build housing—never mind that the land was already being flipped for a profit before a single foundation was laid, never mind that the proposed developments wouldn’t even be affordable to most working people. But the fact that they used the housing crisis like this, as a pretense to help themselves, is unforgivable.

Even the Premier’s own hand-picked housing task force recommended the absolute opposite of what this government did. Every single expert voice—the government’s own housing task force; housing experts; municipalities, mayors, councillors, reeves; environmental advocates; First Nations—said that we do not need to sacrifice the greenbelt to build housing, that we have enough land within existing boundaries.

According to Environmental Defence, “Even before the 2022 boundary expansions and greenbelt removals, there was more than 35,000 hectares ... of unused land already designated for suburban development in the GTHA. That is more than three times the size of Paris, France.”

The Premier may have promised to reverse this decision, he may have apologized, but Ontarians still want to know why—despite pushback from all sides, why did the Premier and his government chase the greenbelt? Who tipped off the developers? Why was a cabinet minister getting massages in Las Vegas with a land speculator who stood to benefit from the greenbelt swap?

Speaker, we in the official opposition, NDP, New Democrats, want to make life better for people. It’s what drives us. But you cannot do what needs to be done without first restoring trust, accountability and transparency back here at Queen’s Park. And unfortunately, that is something that this government has completely destroyed.

This is why, today, the official opposition is calling on the government to form a select committee on changes to the greenbelt, to ensure Ontarians are able to get the answers that they so deeply deserve.

Unfortunately, the Premier and the Conservatives are not in this to help Ontarians. This is a party that has a single-minded vision to only benefit their select few friends at the expense of everybody else and, frankly, at the expense of the well-being of this province.

Sadly, this is a government that has made it clear again and again that they cannot be trusted. Just a week ago, when the Legislature returned, the housing minister stood up in the House and said, no, they won’t be passing the greenbelt restoration act. That was the NDP’s legislation that would have reversed the Conservatives’ changes and restored those land protections. In fact, the Conservatives voted it down before it even got to first reading. That is almost unforeseen. They said they’re introducing their own legislation, but it’s nowhere to be seen—and here we are, another week gone by, and we’re still waiting.

This government has made it so very hard to trust their words and their promises. The official opposition’s requests to the Auditor General and the Integrity Commissioner revealed significant evidence that this government did not follow due processes and, in fact, that they gave favourable, preferential treatment to a select few developers over the interest of Ontarians. Before they got caught, they were ready to put billions—billions—in the pockets of their insider land speculators at the expense of essential agricultural lands and ecosystems.

The Auditor General’s report, though, left no doubt—there is no way that a single staff member acted alone to rig the system. This starts at the top.

The NDP’s initial letter to the Auditor General raised concerns about the shift of wealth to land speculators who were not building any homes, including concerns about Mr. Silvio DeGasperis and his ongoing efforts to remove 1,300 acres of DRAP lands.

Let’s review this. Mr. DeGasperis is the president of TACC Construction Ltd. and TACC Developments. The DeGasperis family are prominent donors to the Conservative Party and have donated at least $163,362 since 2014. That’s a pretty penny. The DeGasperis family began purchasing parcels of cheap farmland in north Pickering as early as 2003 with the hopes of building new subdivisions. This land was totally undevelopable until the Ford Conservatives, the members opposite, changed government policy. We know that the DeGasperis family acquired more of this land as recently as 2020.

We also know that Silvio DeGasperis asked a court to block the Auditor General from interviewing him in response to a summons as a part of the greenbelt investigation. It makes you wonder what they’re hiding. What else is there to uncover? What revelations are still to come?

Similarly, Ontarians would also like to understand the suspicious timing of land purchases by Michael Rice, his donation ties to this government and to speculators. Michael Rice is the CEO of Rice Group, and he is also listed as the president of Green Lane Bathurst GP, a company that bought $80 million worth of land which was, at the time, five undevelopable parcels in the greenbelt, two months prior to the government’s November 2022 announcement. Michael Rice has also donated significantly to the Progressive Conservative Party.

In July 2023, Mr. Rice went to court to avoid answering questions regarding his company’s dealings in the greenbelt after—yes, again—he was summoned by the Auditor General. Again, this just begs the question of what else is not being shared?

Speaker, we’re clearly just scratching the surface here, and that is why we in the official opposition NDP are proposing a select committee. A select committee would be able to summon these two developers, who are witnesses but yet refused to co-operate with the Auditor General’s investigation, and they would be compelled to provide their evidence. This is how democracy functions, and Ontarians deserve answers and accountability.

I’m going to offer a few more details about the shady backroom dealings that this government has been engaging in since day one, because I think it helps to lend some colour, let’s just say, to why we might want to actually hold a select committee and why it might be in the best interest of this government to shine a little light on those dark corners.

We know that several individuals who attended the Premier’s family wedding were developers who received favourable ministerial zoning orders and at least one individual who benefited from the now-reversed greenbelt land swap.

But the backroom dealings go further back than November 2022. The Conservatives—the Conservative government—have had their eyes on the greenbelt for their donor-speculator friends since 2018. Here’s a timeline of events that took place prior to November 2022, when the Conservative government decided to remove thousands of acres of land from the greenbelt.

Let’s just start—and this isn’t even going that far back. We know, of course, that the Premier did promise developers in 2018 that he was going to carve up the greenbelt and serve it up to speculators. We have that on record. But let’s go back to April 2022. Luca Bucci was Minister Clark’s chief of staff from January 2021 until April 2022. He joined as CEO of the Ontario Home Builders’ Association in July 2022, just a few months later. But on May 30, 2022, Mr. Bucci registered to lobby the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing on behalf of the Ontario Home Builders’ Association, despite guidelines in the Members’ Integrity Act and the Lobbyists Registration Act that actually prevent a public servant from lobbying their former employer for at least one year. That’s the rule here in Ontario—at least one year—and that’s, of course, to prevent any real or perceived conflict of interest.

Here’s another date: June 2022. Andrew Sidnell, a senior aide in Premier Ford’s office, circulated the Premier’s feedback on a 47-page slide deck in an email sent after midnight on June 28, 2022; that’s according to documents that were released through freedom of information. The email chain, which was obtained by the Narwhal, is the first set of records that have been released by the government that suggest the Premier may have been privy to policy discussions about the greenbelt as early as June 2022. That’s just weeks after, let’s remember, the people of Ontario elected this government expecting, believing that they would act with trust and integrity.

September 15, 2022: Green Lane Bathurst GP Inc. purchased five parcels of greenbelt protected land in a group sale for a total of $80 million. The sale listing described the property as a “prime land banking opportunity.” The company lists, as I mentioned earlier, Rice Group CEO Michael Rice as its president.

Then, this summer, the walls start to close in on the Conservative government’s apparent breach of Ontarians’ trust. On June 29, 2023, the Auditor General issued a summons to Silvio DeGasperis, president of TACC Group of companies, to ask him to provide information related to properties owned by his companies that were removed from the greenbelt. Mr. DeGasperis filed a letter with the courts asking to block the summons.

July 5, 2023: Michael Rice, CEO of the Rice Group, filed a notice of application with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice seeking to block or delay a summons from Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk that he be interviewed and provide records related to land he owns in the area that, as we know, was now cleared for development.

August 1, 2023—follow along here—Luca Bucci, former chief of staff to the then Ontario housing minister, suddenly leaves his position as CEO of the Ontario Home Builders’ Association, days before the Auditor General announces their office is about to release that special report on changes to the greenbelt, which we in the official opposition, along with leaders of the two other parties, had requested.

Why not clear the air, with all of that? What is this government hiding?

The Integrity Commissioner’s first report found that the member for Leeds–Grenville–Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes had breached sections 2, conflict of interest, and 3.2, insider information, of the Members’ Integrity Act. But those are just a little glimpse into how deep this scandal goes, and the people of Ontario deserve to know the actual full extent of the biggest scandal in Ontario’s political history.

How can we begin to trust a government that has tied itself up so neatly in this web? How can we trust a government when one of their own former cabinet ministers didn’t tell the full story to the Integrity Commissioner under oath about taking a trip to Las Vegas with a developer and making policy on the massage table with them?

According to the Integrity Commissioner, the parties involved—Mr. Rasheed and then-principal secretary to the Premier, Amin Massoudi—said they took the trip in December 2019 and “exchanged pleasantries” with developer Shakir Rehmatullah in the lobby of a hotel. That was the extent of it, apparently. Mr. Rasheed told the Integrity Commissioner that he is friends with Mr. Rehmatullah but didn’t know he was going to be in Las Vegas—what a coincidence. Mr. Rehmatullah is the founder of Flato Development, a company listed as the owner of two of the sites removed from the greenbelt. However, records show that former-Minister Rasheed actually went on the trip—guess what—in February 2020, and the three men also—what a coincidence—got massages at the same time.

Speaker, is this how a government that apparently is concerned about the housing crisis acts? This scandal has cost this government three cabinet ministers, and they’ve set the province back at least five years in meeting our housing targets. Because of this government, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., Ontario has the biggest housing unit supply gap in the entire country. The Premier and his government have destroyed any confidence at all in the system. We need them to move forward with a select committee so we can get to the bottom of it all—because the fact of the matter is, you can solve a housing crisis without a corruption crisis.

We knew when we rang the alarm bells that none of this was ever about housing. In fact, the Conservatives’ corruption scandal only further fuels land speculation and worsens the accountability crisis and the affordability crisis that Ontarians are struggling with every single day. It further encourages greedy speculators to play unethical real estate games to rake in even bigger profits without delivering the homes that we know people actually need. It creates expensive sprawl, which the Auditor General’s report indicates will cost Ontarians billions for roads, sewers, water and other services.

Madam Speaker, if the government actually cared about addressing the housing crisis, there are many, many tools at the Premier’s disposal, if they wanted to take just a minute away from thinking about the interests of their developer friends—those land speculators who are their donors, who they have committed to making richer and richer each day. I can give them a few of those tools right now, if the housing minister would like to take notes.

For starters, this government could bring back real rent control. That would stop the housing affordability crisis from getting worse. They could end exclusionary zoning—a recommendation of their very own housing task force. They could pass the official opposition’s housing critic’s motion to set up a short-term rental registry and restrict short-term and mid-term rentals to a person’s primary residence in those areas where we have low vacancy rates.

I want to quote the member for University–Rosedale here. She said, “Our province has a housing affordability crisis, and we must take every practical measure to make housing affordable for Ontarians again. Cracking down on short-term rentals in investment properties is one way we can make renting more affordable and stable.” I’ll say. Yes, indeed.

Those are just a few of the solutions that we in the official opposition NDP have recommended to help people today—not 10 years from now, but today.

Let’s be clear: This government didn’t walk into a housing crisis on June 3, 2022. This is a crisis that has been years in the making. The Premier has claimed many times that his party didn’t run on the greenbelt land swap because there wasn’t a housing crisis at the time. Oh, please. Come on. The Integrity Commissioner’s report notes many times that staff had discussed greenbelt removals prior to the election. In fact, according to the commissioner’s report, just 27 days after his re-election, the Premier was giving the former Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs explicit instructions to start carving up the greenbelt. The Premier claims that that all happened as of June 2. Come on. In fact, Andrew Sidnell, the Premier’s former deputy chief of staff, told the Integrity Commissioner that he understood that the housing crisis was a priority this government was just elected to solve, which is completely contradictory to the Premier’s comments.

Mr. Speaker, there is so much more left to be uncovered. If the Premier has nothing to hide, then why are they not co-operating? If they have nothing to hide, why did this government say no to the official opposition’s request for a Speaker’s warrant? Let’s do this—if the government has nothing to hide. Even at the height of the Liberal government’s absolutely disastrous gas plant scandal, that government, those MPPs, co-operated in forming a select committee to investigate what happened.

The Auditor General’s report also revealed that the Premier was using his personal device—this is something I raised in question period this morning, and I didn’t get any answers, interestingly. The Premier was using his personal device for government business; even the former housing minister’s staff were found to be using personal email accounts to conduct government business—by the way, I think they then deleted some emails. This is not how government is supposed to be run.