The long-awaited Auditor General’s report into the Greenbelt scandal was released yesterday, and it outlined some utterly bald-faced corruption as Ford’s sudden desire to develop the Greenbelt saw the chief-of-staff for the housing minister meeting with developers who had just bought these un-developable tracts of land and persuaded him to make those tracts developable, to the tune of an $8.3 billion benefit to them. That’s billion with a b. The process was flawed and contravened pretty much every rule. (The ten take-aways are here). But this all having been said, the Auditor General seemed to also credulously believe that Ford and the minister had no idea that this was going on—which…is hard to believe, considering how many of these developers were at events related to Ford’s daughter’s wedding. And while I can see Ford not knowing the details, because he’s a retail politician and doesn’t care about details, he’s nevertheless responsible for this as premier, and that responsibility absolutely extends to chiefs of staff when they “go rogue.” The report makes fifteen recommendations, which Ford says they’ll follow—except the one about stopping the process of developing the Greenbelt, because apparently his mind is made up.
But in spite of the outright corruption that happened, don’t expect any particular consequences—at least not in the near future. While the OPP’s anti-racket division is looking into this, the “rogue” chief of staff is keeping his job, and so is the minister, because we no longer care about ministerial responsibility when you have corruption to the tune of $8.3 billion. Ford says the buck stops with him, but he spent the afternoon rationalizing and insisting that this is necessary for housing (it’s not), and then blamed the federal government for high immigration numbers (which Ontario has been crying out for), never mind that Ford and company have been ignoring the recommendations of the very task force that they set up to look at the housing situation. And Ford will skate, because he’s not only Teflon-coated, but possesses the Baby Spice Effect™, except instead of her cute smile, he just says “aw, shucks, folks,” and everyone’s brain melts and he gets away with murder. (Well, negligent homicide as the pandemic showed).
Accountability! https://t.co/sx1gsNqMkH pic.twitter.com/T28kScrgY1
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) August 9, 2023
Unfortunately, I fear there will be few consequences because Doug Ford possesses the Baby Spice effect.
Only instead of her cute smile, he says “Aw, shucks,” and gets away with absolutely everything.https://t.co/tC4TUAz56k https://t.co/2ionV5J1g3— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) August 10, 2023
https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1689294359441604608
https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1689323838343979031
In pundit reaction, David Moscrop demands resignations, firings and further investigations for this blatant corruption. Martin Regg Cohn points to the bitter irony of Ford riding into office alleging corruption everywhere only to be engaging in it much more blatantly here.
Ukraine Dispatch:
There was a Russian missile attack against Zaporizhzhia that hit a residential area, killing at least two. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that they have reached an agreement to get more Patriot systems from Germany.
https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1689329656481103872
⚡️Massive Russian drone attack destroys oil depot in Rivne Oblast.
Russian forces hit Rivne Oblast with a "massive" drone attack on Aug. 10 that destroyed an oil depot in the Dubno district, Oblast Governor Vitaliy Koval reported via Telegram.https://t.co/mKHgY3HBAM
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) August 10, 2023