Nearly 4,000 pages of documents that we released yesterday paint a very disturbing picture of backroom dealing and preferential treatment at the highest levels of the Ford government. The records provide clear proof that Ford officials went to great lengths to conceal their true motives of removing precious greenbelt lands to benefit wealthy speculators and developers. We see the Premier’s own office director being looped into meetings with developers whose lands were conveniently opened up. Text messages reveal misleading public statements as ministry staff worked secretly to strip away environmental protections. And incredibly, just days after a developer attended the Premier’s daughter’s wedding, that same developer’s proposal to pave over the greenbelt was prioritized. So let’s be honest. This was never about the housing crisis, and it certainly wasn’t about the well-being of the public.

These bombshell documents tell the real story—one of corporate favouritism, conflicts of interest, and a government putting sprawl developers first, at the expense of farmland, at the expense of our green spaces, and certainly at the expense of future generations, and at the expense of faith in democracy and good government.

There’s an old adage that democracy has to be more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. But that’s what this greenbelt scheme reveals. It reeks, and it’s the worst kind of cynical cronyism that makes people lose faith in governments and, frankly, in basic decency.

This is another broken promise and more rock-solid proof that this government will always put their insiders ahead of the interests of the people of Ontario.