Ontario housing minister responds to Greenbelt report, admits ‘process was flawed’

Ontario opposition parties say today’s Greenbelt report means the housing Minister has to go the minister uh Minister Clark has to resign and if he won’t he needs to be removed from cabinet immediately for me what has to happen most immediately is for the minister to step aside or the

Premier to ask him to step aside and for freezing of development Ontario’s minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing joins me now Steve Clark Minister Clark welcome to the program thank you heather you and the Premier Minister Clark still insist that you needed this Greenbelt Land to meet the

Province’s housing goals and the auditor general was clear in her conclusion you did not she reiterated that in an interview with me just now so I’m wondering to begin why do you continue to maintain it was the the report that uh States codes the housing affordability task force which

Was tabled early last year before the election Lots has changed the economy has changed interest rates have changed and the housing starts have continued to change so we looked at the situation with Ontario with the amount of new Canadians which are are coming under the federal government’s new immigration

We’re now saying and we’ve said for quite a while that we need a minimum of 1.5 million homes so that’s what we took to the the people last June and and part of my mandate as the report States indicated that I was to develop this policy and bring it in very quickly and

I understand I I I understand the concern uh it’s unprecedented for a premier to respond directly to the auditor general report but I was proud to stand with the premier uh and and respond and indicate that we recognize that the process was lot that it was too fast we recognized the suggestions in

The 14 recommendations that are process related and both the premier and I are committed to ensuring that we act quickly on those 14 recommendations together we’re going to talk about all of those if you don’t my Minister Clark in a little bit more detail but again as

You as you say you were proud to stand beside the premier today and you did make repeatedly uh the point that this was to address the Urgent housing situation in Ontario and you cited the housing affordability task force that wasn’t the only information the chief planners in a number of regions all said

Greenbelt Land was not needed and even just a month before this policy changed your own Ministry indicated you’d already allocated all 1.5 million units that you had targeted before the policy changed so again I wonder how do you continue to dismiss all of the information which is from again within

Your own Ministry in some cases you’re better than in math than I am Heather so the last two years last year we had 96 000 housing starts the year before one of the highest we’ve had since the early 80s we had almost 100 000 starts 100 000 starts or 96 000

Starts times 10 isn’t going to get us to our 1.5 million and we’re using the 1.5 million as a minimum Target with the amount of new Canadians coming um to our Province we need to do everything we can and when we came and and we were re-elected last summer we

Made a very very clear commitment to ontarians that we would put a plan in place and we would have a housing Supply action plan each and every year you can do two things in the middle of a housing crisis you can build or you cannot build our governments decided to build but

Insane this is though about creating housing spaces why then are there no firm guarantees that construction is going to begin on these lands by 2025 life no later than 2025. no framework in place yet we have a non-partisan uh organization the provincial land and development facilitator that will be charged with

Working with the landowners and municipalities to ensure that those Community benefits things like roads and Transit Parks uh Healthcare facilities long-term care facilities and the housing including non-profit housing are built by the guidelines that the government has set forward I have complete confidence um that the land provincial land and

Development facilitator will work with municipalities to get that done to to get shovels in the ground and also get those billions of dollars of community benefits moving forward um you know it’s it’s very important that that we continue to move forward in the middle of a housing Supply crisis

And that’s exactly what we’ve done but at the same time realize that we can have a better more transparent uh and more open process and we accept the auditor General’s recommendations the 14 recommendations that focus on that I’m committed as minister to make sure that that happens but there is no commitment

To what is to many the key recommendation that is namely to revisit the land swaps in the first place and to possibly reverse the decision why will you not examine that well we don’t accept not building houses in a housing Supply crisis we commit to continuing to work through with our

Municipal Partners you you mentioned the housing pledges we’re going to continue to to help them meet the goals we’ve committed to ontarians that uh uh re-elected government under the leadership of Premier Ford we’d have a housing Supply action plan and Heather we’ve got a generation of ontarians that

Are being pushed farther and farther and farther out of the market our government uh can can make two choices we can either not build or build and we’ve chose the latter okay the Ontario auditor general again coming back to her you said you accept her her take on the

Process she says that you ought to have known what your chief of staff was doing his activities all through uh her report and I’m wondering even to go beyond that should you have known and I think many would wonder how could you not have known uh the process uh that the auditor

General outlines in a report um I recognized was too fast was too flawed needs to be fixed I was unequivocal of when I didn’t know the report States very clearly when I didn’t know at the end of October recommended to cabinet and cabinet made the decision a week later regarding these properties

You know again some of her recommendations have been referred to the Integrity commissioner my myself and my staff continue uh to work with and cooperate with the Integrity commissioner in his investigation but I I want uh I want people in our Province to understand that we are committed to

Taking the recommendations out of this report and Implement them as soon as we can it’s very very important the process matters opposition parties as you perhaps know are calling for you to be removed from cabinet that you might not have control over but they’re also calling for your resignation will you

Resign as a result of this I appreciate the support the premier gave me today not just at the press conference but uh you know in terms of implementing the recommendations from the report I think it’s very important that myself and my team uh continue to show confidence in moving forward with

What’s been recommended to be changed uh I’m unequivocal in wanting those changes to be made as soon as possible Minister Clark thank you very much for your time tonight

‘Both the premier and I are committed to ensuring we act quickly on those 14 recommendations to get it right,’ Steve Clark, Ontario’s minister of municipal affairs and housing, told Power & Politics on Wednesday in response to the auditor general’s scathing report on the Ford government’s development of the Greenbelt land.

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