The “Concept Plan” (above) shows the preferred location of the proposed new Southlake acute hospital on the Bathurst lands following Premier Doug Ford’s decision – now abandoned - to open parts of the Greenbelt for development. It is dated 29 January 2023.
Despite Ford reversing his Greenbelt plans in September 2023 and returning to the status quo ante, Southlake has fought tooth and nail for years to keep the drawings, emails and discussions secret until now when the Information and Privacy Commissioner ordered their disclosure.
Background
On 15 September 2022 the 2.7 sq km block of Greenbelt land at Bathurst – in the municipality of King and next door to Newmarket - was bought by the developer, Michael Rice, for $80M.
This was less than two months before 522 acres of it were removed from the Greenbelt and 132 acres of it were redesignated as a settlement area within the Oak Ridges Moraine.
On 1 November 2022, Rice said he would gift some of that land to Southlake for a new acute hospital. On 4 November 2022, the Housing minister, Steve Clark, announced that certain Greenbelt lands were to be opened for development.
Backlash
Ford’s Greenbelt policy generated a huge backlash from the public and media. On 9 August 2023, a highly critical report from the Auditor General was published on the changes to the Greenbelt. And three weeks later the Integrity Commissioner, David Wake, published his searing report.
On 21 September 2023 a contrite Ford announced that the lands removed from the Greenbelt in December 2022 were to be returned to it. He pledged never to build on the Greenbelt again. Ford admitted it had been a huge mistake.
The RCMP launched their investigation into the Greenbelt scandal on 10 October 2023. Astonishingly, it is still ongoing.
Reporting from the Toronto Star last October revealed that former Housing Minister Steve Clark, former business minister Kaleed Rasheed and Clark’s former chief of staff, Ryan Amato, had not, at that stage, been interviewed by the police.
The Greenbelt Development that collapsed
We now know from the newly released material from Southlake that in January 2023 there were plans for a major new community on the Rice lands complete with high, medium and low density residential and commercial development. There were to be elementary schools. There was also the possibility of a 320 bed Long Term Care facility - something Rice clearly wanted.
Servicing options were still being explored but these discussions didn’t involve Newmarket or King Township as the municipalities at that stage were being deliberately kept out of the loop.
On 17 April 2023, the Auditor General, Bonnie Lysyk, asked Rice to meet her to discuss all this. He refused and she didn’t pursue the matter. She published her damning report anyway. However, Rice gave evidence to the Integrity Commissioner.
Ryan Amato
The report of the Integrity Commissioner revealed that on either 28 or 29 September 2022 Rice handed over to Ryan Amato a bundle of documents calling for the removal of the Bathurst lands in King from the protected countryside in the Greenbelt. There was no mention of a hospital on the Bathurst lands.
Rice subsequently had a crisis of conscience and told the Integrity Commissioner, David Wake, that he had promised to make land available for a new hospital and he was going to stick with it.
In any event, we now know from the concept plan that Rice was proposing a major redevelopment of the entire Bathurst block which would have returned a big profit on the $80m he paid for it just a few months earlier. The land gifted to Southlake would, presumably, have been set off against tax otherwise owing to the CRA.
In her report the Auditor General estimated that the owners of the 15 sites originally removed from the Greenbelt could have seen an increase in land value of $8.3 Billion.
Freedom of Information
I expect the RCMP will shed more light on Ryan Amato’s role in getting the Bathurst lands removed from the Greenbelt.
That said, there is much speculation that Ford’s proposed FoI legislation will torpedo the investigation.
But the Police are investigating possible criminal behaviour and any materials removed by them using their search warrant powers would not be affected by changes to Freedom of Information legislation, even if retroactive.
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Note: The new material confirms that no development was being considered for John Dunlap’s land immediately to the south and adjacent to the Rice Block. As we know, only the Rice lands were removed from the Greenbelt. Dunlap was a member of the Southlake Board when his company facilitated the sale of the Bathurst block to Rice. It was marketed as a “land banking opportunity”. Graphics presented to the meeting at King municipality on 1 November 2022 (when Rice offered to gift land to Southlake) clearly showed the new hospital site straddling the Rice/Dunlap lands. A similar graphic was shown to Southlake’s Land Acquisition Sub Committee on 5 December 2022 – with the colour coding showing the land ownership removed. Dunlap had told King Mayor, Steve Pellegrini, that he was prepared to offer his land as the site of a new Southlake. But former hospital CEO, Arden Krystal, said Southlake had no record of Dunlap ever making an offer of land.
