When I cross the border into the United States, it happens. When we go through security checks at international airports, it happens. When I was approached by the Ontario Court for jury duty, it happened. At those moments and others, we are asked:
“Do you swear that this is the truth?”
It’s called an oath. And when we cross an international border, Customs and Immigration officers need to know we’re being honest. Going through Pearson Airport security and onto public commercial airlines, security needs to know we’re abiding by the law. And if we’re meeting our civic duty in the Ontario court system, the judge needs to hear us say, “Yes, that’s the truth.”
So why don’t any of those protocols of oath-taking, of abiding by the rules, apply to Ford government officials around Conservative policies regarding protection of Greenbelt lands?
When then auditor general Bonnie Lysyk exposed the provincial government’s plan to secretly reverse its own promise of protecting two million acres of farmland, forest, watershed and wildlife preserve around the GTA – calling the process “biased in favour of certain developers” – why didn’t Doug Ford and Steve Clark have to take an oath that they didn’t know?
Because apparently they did … because when Integrity Commissioner David Wake in his report accused Steve Clark, then housing minister, of choosing to “stick his head in the sand” while his chief of staff, Ryan Amato, embarked on a “chaotic and almost reckless process,” something that egregious could not have gone unnoticed by his boss. Now Amato is gone, but not MPP Clark. Seems to me taking an oath of accountability might be appropriate.
Ah, but now there’s another angle to the Ford government Greenbelt fiasco emerging. There appears that silence in our own backyard – i.e. the Pickering-Uxbridge constituency – has attracted investigation.
On Sept. 9, the Globe and Mail reported that the former vice-chair of the Greenbelt Foundation, Susan McGovern, has connections to The Rice Group. Her husband, John McGovern, is the company’s senior vice-president of policy and planning and The Rice Group is among the circle of developers whose land the government removed from the Greenbelt last November.
That suggests to me a pretty clear case of conflict of interest. But I’m not alone. Integrity Commissioner Wake revealed in his August 30 report that The Rice Group prepared a document supporting the removal of its holdings from the Greenbelt, and that document was deliverered to Ryan Amato, then at the Housing Ministry in September 2022 – two months before the Ford Cabinet yanked 7,400 acres of Greenbelt for development.
Sandy Shaw, the NDP’s environment critic told Karen Howlett and Jill Mahoney at the Globe, “It seems there’s always just one degree of separation between (the Ford) government and a very select group of insider developers.”
But this gets even more interesting. When she was appointed to the Ford government’s Greenbelt Foundation, Ms. McGovern did not reveal that her husband was among those lobbying the provincial government for permission to build on the environmentally protected lands. She was vice-chair at the time. She’s not anymore.
Where is she today? Susan McGovern is currently an executive adviser to Minister of Finance Peter Bethlenfalvy. May I reprint for you the comment I quoted in my August 17, 2023, Barris Beat column? When challenged for answers about the Ford government’s acknowledgment of the “flawed process” of releasing Greenbelt lands for to a select group of developers for housing, our MPP said:
“The 100 people I talked to, say, ‘build.’ That’s what I hear and that’s why we’re going to continue our build.”
That means that Susan McGovern, the former vice-chair of the Greenbelt Foundatioin – the wife of John McGovern, senior vice-president of policy and planning and The Rice Group who apparently lobbied the Ford government and won the release of lands in the Greenbelt – is now a senior adviser to our MPP and the Finance Minister of Ontario. I have no problem with her aspirations to join a powerful ministry in the public affairs of Ontario.
I do worry, however, about what the integrity commissioner discovered she did; according to David Wake, during a Greenbelt Foundation board meeting in October last year (a board to which Premier Ford had her appointed) discussing Greenbelt issues (just weeks before the Ford government released Greenbelt lands), Ms. McGovern failed to disclose her connection to The Rice Group.
Ms. McGovern’s credentials may well serve Peter Bethlenfalvy’s needs as an MPP and as finance minister. But perhaps an oath of allegiance to the public’s needs and wishes about protecting the Greenbelt is in order.
With the loss of so many newspapers, and investigative journalists, these stories will be harder to uncover. Thanks to you Ted for keeping many of us informed about the Greenbelt “games people play”.
Thank God we have a few newspapers left and TVO and the CBC.
Premier Ford’s apology for breaking his promise not to touch the Greenbelt, would mean so much more to us if he, and perhaps the folks who worked to destroy the Greenbelt made healthy, public donations to charities in Ontario.