NDP Call For Further Investigation Into Las Vegas Trip Taken By Former Ford Minister, Developer
Adedokun Waliyu 
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles is calling on the integrity commissioner to investigate the details of a trip to Las Vegas involving a former Ford cabinet minister, the premier’s former principal secretary and a land developer.
MPP Kaleed Rasheed stepped down in September as Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery of Ontario after questions arose following his trip to Las Vegas at the same time as a developer who owns land that had been removed from the Greenbelt for development.
Rasheed and two other staffers initially told the integrity commissioner they had encountered Shakir Rehmatullah, founder and president of Markham, Ont.,-based Flato Developments, while in Las Vegas but that both were on separate trips. However, reports surfaced that Rasheed, Rehmatullah and Ford’s principal secretary, Amin Massoudi, booked massages for the same time.
In her letter addressed to Integrity Commissioner David Wake, Stiles says she is “alarmed by the lack of transparency” by the government members and a “pattern of preferential treatment” towards developers.
Aside from the Vegas trip and the attempted changes to the Greenbelt, Stiles notes Rehmatullah has also been the beneficiary of numerous Ministerial Zoning Orders (MZO), which allow the government to overrule local municipalities and push through development.
“These matters articulate what appears to be a pattern of preferential treatment given to a select few developers as it relates to government land-use policy, particularly Mr. Rehmatullah,” writes Stiles. “The Auditor General has noted in previous reports that a lack of transparency in the criteria of issuing MZOs opens the process to criticisms of conflict of interest and unfairness.”
The Auditor General’s office recently launched its own investigation into MZOs.
While Premier Doug Ford accepted Rasheed’s resignation in September he left the door open for a possible return to caucus if “Mr. Rasheed can clear his name through the Office of the Integrity Commissioner,” he said in a statement.
