EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a new Village Media website devoted exclusively to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.
Ontarians just got a tiny peek under the hood of a normally secretive process that could create some serious headaches within the Ford government.
Two developers — Michael Rice and Silvio De Gasperis — are taking the province's auditor general Bonnie Lysyk to court to block her attempts to talk to them as part of her office's ongoing probe into the Greenbelt land swap.
The De Gasperis suit was first reported by CBC, and the Rice suit by the Toronto Star.
The court filings detail some of the topics Lysyk's office has been looking at and how she's gone about her work. They offer a rare — albeit limited — glimpse into the process behind the audit that Lysyk is trying to finish before her 10-year term as provincial auditor expires on Sept. 3.
Rice and De Gasperis are both PC donors who own several properties the government took out of the Greenbelt in late 2022.
Rice's Green Lane Bathurst GP purchased plots of land in King Township for $80 million in 2022 — weeks before the government announced it would be removing the properties' protections and opening them up for development.
De Gasperis owns several parcels of land in the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve. He purchased most of them before the area came under provincial protection thanks to the 2005 Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act and the Greenbelt Act, according to his lawyer Neil Wilson.
On January 18, Lysyk announced she'd do a value-for-money audit of the government's Greenbelt changes after the leaders of all three opposition parties asked her to a letter. At the time, Lysyk said "the exact scope of the audit has not as yet been finalized."
There hasn't been much information on the audit since then, as auditors general don't typically comment on ongoing work.
"It has been our historical practice not to publicly discuss the exact scope of our work until our work is completed and our report has been" publicly released, Lysyk wrote on January 18.
Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark said on May 31 that, by then, he and Lysyk had a "quick talk" as part of her audit work. Clark's spokespeople didn't respond when The Trillium asked them in late June for more details about the minister's or his staff's involvement in the audit process.
Lysyk started reaching out to the two prominent developers in the spring, according to court documents, asking an almost identical set of questions.
Rice was up first on April 17 when Lysyk sent him a letter asking for an interview on an "audit looking at the recent changes to the Greenbelt and their economic implications, including their effect on Ontario's housing goals."
On April 27, she sent another letter outlining some specific topics.
They include "industry challenges with Ontario's unique land-use planning system," as well as "commentary on the provincial government’s expectations for the speed and type of development on the land removed from the Greenbelt."
Lysyk also wanted to chat about Rice's "usual approaches to servicing housing developments and whether land recently removed from the Greenbelt is expected to create additional servicing challenges" and an account of his "experience of working with the provincial government to amend the Greenbelt boundary with respect to the company’s real estate holdings in the Greenbelt," the documents show.
Lysyk's efforts to talk with De Gasperis happen over a much shorter period.
The first letter she sent to him came on June 16. It detailed topics she wants to discuss, such as "insight into housing industry challenges" and "how the government of Ontario identified the TACC Group's lands for assessment for potential removal from the Greenbelt."
She also wanted to talk about "the provincial government’s expectations for the speed and type of development on the land removed from the Greenbelt" and "overall experience of working with the government of Ontario to amend the Greenbelt boundary with respect to the TACC Group's land holdings."
After a back-and-forth in May, Lysyk issued Rice a summons on June 27 under the Public Inquiries Act and the Auditor General Act.
In it, she requested he bring "any and all relevant records, correspondence, notes and documents in connection with the examination under oath regarding" his property removed from the Greenbelt, according to the claim.
She sent a copy of the summons to De Gasperis' lawyer on the same day to set up a meeting at her office on June 30 at 3:30 p.m. She also asked for all records on his Greenbelt-related landholdings.
When De Gasperis' lawyer said he couldn't make the June 30 meeting "but he would seek instructions on service, the respondent in bad faith attempted to serve the summons directly on the applicant (without success),” the filing said.
Despite the showdown, TACC's lawyer said Lysyk's office "is considering clarifying to TACC what information is being sought."
Lysyk's office didn't comment because the audit is ongoing, her office told The Trillium.
