“It was a mistake to open the Greenbelt.”
It’s a stunning admission many thought they’d never hear from Ontario Premier Doug Ford. But here we are. Eleven months after the Progressive Conservative government opened up the Greenbelt to development, the premier is apologizing, putting the land back in
— and vowing to never again touch — the protected area.
“I made a promise to you that I wouldn’t touch the Greenbelt. I broke that promise. And for that I am very, very sorry,” Ford said.
A political reversal of this magnitude doesn’t just happen out of nowhere. The Narwhal’s Emma McIntosh, in partnership with our buds at the Toronto Star, first broke the story of the Ford government’s doling out of Greenbelt parcels to well-connected
developers.
Emma remembers digging into property records to figure out just who were the biggest beneficiaries of the Greenbelt being opened up: “Back then, we were working long into the night, figuring out how to best serve this critical information to the public — and
to do it quickly, before the decision was final,” Emma said. “I never could have imagined where this reporting would take us.”
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