Greenbelt scandal prompted rounds of ethics training: integrity commissioner

Ontario’s integrity commissioner says that he was asked to organize several ethics training sessions for senior Ford government figures after the Greenbelt scandal raised serious concerns about how key decisions were made.

In his annual report, Integrity Commissioner J. David Wake said the premier’s office asked him to refresh chiefs of staff on the rules around conflict of interest after the scandal, as well as more training initiatives he was asked to put on at the start of the year.

Wake authored one of two explosive watchdog reports into Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s Greenbelt land swap, finding an improper process had potentially alerted developers to the government’s plan to remove protected land around the GTA.

Former housing minister Steve Clark and his chief of staff were among those forced to resign during the scandal, which ultimately saw Ford abandon the plan and apologize for his attempts to take land out of the Greenbelt.

Both Wake and Ontairo’s auditor general found wide-ranging issues with the Greenbelt process in separate investigations released in August 2023.

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Wake said the Greenbelt plan was “marked by misinterpretation, unnecessary hastiness and deception.” The auditor general said that the land swap “cannot be described as a standard or defensible process.”

A chastened Premier Ford was forced to apologize after the reports and vowed to do better.

“The buck stops with me and I take full responsibility for the need for a better process,” the premier said last August.

The government ultimately accepted all 15 of the recommendations made by Ontario’s auditor general, including plans to implement training on the use of personal email accounts for government business and for more proactive requests to the integrity commissioner to determine conflicts of interest.

The integrity commissioner also organized official training for both the premier’s office and other senior government figures.

In his annual report, Wake said he was “invited” by the premier’s office to give a conflict of interest presentation to chiefs of staff and “other senior staff” in ministers’ offices after the crisis.

Later, in February and March of 2024, Wake delivered three more training sessions alongside the province’s information and privacy commissioner.

“This was done online to reach all ministers’ staff who each attended one of the sessions,” Wake wrote in his annual report.

The information and privacy commissioner has said she will publish the results of her own Greenbelt investigation in due course.