RCMP interviews currently underway in Ford government Greenbelt probe [Video]

Officers with the RCMP have begun interviewing people who work or have worked in Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s office, the government says, as a police investigation into the government’s Greenbelt land swap gathers pace.

The premier’s office said in a statement Friday that they had “always said we would cooperate” with the RCMP’s investigation into the land swap of the environmentally-protected lands.

“That cooperation would include the premier and current or former staff conducting interviews as witnesses, which are currently underway,” a spokesperson for Ford’s office said.

The RCMP’s investigation was triggered after two watchdog reports last summer into the Ford government’s decision to remove 7,400 acres of protected land from the Greenbelt and allow homes to be built there.

Reports from the auditor general and the integrity commissioner raised concerns about how the decision would benefit some developers and how the chaotic internal process had been conducted.

The Ontario Provincial …