Ford government ordered to dig deeper on private meetings during Greenbelt decision [Video]

Ontario’s transparency watchdog has issued another order calling into question how the Ford government managed records and communications around its decision to remove land from the Greenbelt.

In its latest command, the Information and Privacy Commission (IPC) told the government to write to a former staffer and ask them to sign a sworn affidavit explaining the nature of a series of meetings in their calendar marked as “private.”

The meetings took place between July and December 2022, the period of time when the Ford government planned and announced a decision to remove 7,400 acres of land from the Greenbelt.

The Greenbelt decision was eventually reversed after a scandal that saw two ministers resign and is the subject of an ongoing investigation by the RCMP.

The province’s integrity commissioner and auditor general both also released scathing investigations into the plan, including an estimate that the decision would have benefited some developers …