Ontario’s Finance Minister Provides Fiscal Update But Focus Turns To Greenbelt Scandal

Ontario’s finance minister provided an update on the province’s first-quarter finances but he faced tough questions about the scathing auditor-general report into the Ford government’s decision to open up the Greenbelt for housing development.

Peter Bethlenfalvy, who presented his fiscal update in the legislature on Monday morning, revealed the province spent about $766 million more than planned in the first quarter of this fiscal year. Nearly all of that new spending came from contingency funds.

According to the 2023-24 First Quarter Finances, the deficit projection for 2023-24 remains at the $1.3 billion set out in the spring budget.

Revenues and expenses are largely unchanged from the budget forecast, though a detailed look at the expenses sets out $766.6 million in new program spending.

About half of that is to develop industrial land for large-scale manufacturing, with money also going toward policing, flood protection in Toronto, affordable housing in Ottawa and Ontario’s wine sector.

The vast majority of the $766.6 million comes from the contingency fund, which the budget set at $4 billion.

Ontario’s real gross domestic product (GDP) also increased slightly by one per cent due to growth in exports and household spending, compared to a slight decline of 0.2 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year.

“As of the first quarter, Ontario’s real GDP stood 4.9 per cent higher than the pre-pandemic level in the final quarter of 2019,” the province said in a release.

It was the first update on the province’s economic and fiscal outlook since last year’s budget, which was the largest spending budget in Ontario history, pegged at $204 billion.

Although the focus was supposed to be on the first-quarter finances, the attention quickly turned to the Greenebelt controversy during a media briefing.

“We’re in a housing crisis,” Bethlenfalvy reiterated the government’s response, when asked about the province’s plans to build on the protected Greenbelt. “I support the initiative to build at least 50,000 homes on the Greenbelt.”

“The 100 people I talked to say ‘build,’ so that’s what I hear and that’s why we’re going to continue on our build.”

The auditor general’s investigation found the process favoured developers with ties to the housing minister’s chief of staff and failed to consider environmental, agricultural and financial risks and impacts.

The report also found opening up the Greenbelt was not necessary to meet the province’s housing target of 1.5 million homes.

In response to the auditor’s general report, Premier Doug Ford and his office asked the Integrity Commissioner to investigate the housing minister’s chief of staff.

The Integrity Commissioner confirmed the request to investigate whether the Chief of Staff acted “contrary to the requirements of the Public Service of Ontario Act, 2006, which includes the Conflict of Interest Rules for Public Servants (Ministers’ Offices).”

Over the weekend, ‘Stop Sprawl Durham’ demonstrators gathered outside Bethlenfalvy’s office in Pickering calling on the Ford government to stop the development of farmland and other areas of the Greenbelt.