RCMP interviewing current and former Ford staffers as part of Greenbelt investigation

The RCMP have been interviewing witnesses as part of its probe into the Ford government’s decision to open up protected Greenbelt lands for development.

In a brief statement to CityNews, the premier’s office confirmed current and former staff were being interviewed by the police agency but provided no other specifics as to who may have spoken with authorities.

“We’re cooperating with them. We have nothing to hide. Come in and do whatever you have to do,” Premier Ford said on Friday. “There’s nothing to hide there.”

CityNews has learned Premier Doug Ford has not been interviewed.

Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie called it a “sad day for the people of Ontario” who she says deserves more than a government embroiled in a criminal investigation.

“Doug Ford is so obsessed with helping his rich friends and insiders that it has come to this,” she said in a statement regarding the latest in the RCMP investigation. “The RCMP is inside the Premier’s office investigating just how far Ford and his government were willing to go to give away the Greenbelt and help their friends make off with $8.3 billion.”

“The people of this province need to know exactly how Doug Ford was involved in this scandal. Ontario deserves better.”

The news comes exactly one year after then auditor general Bonnie Lysyk issued a scathing report which found Ontario’s decision to open protected Greenbelt lands up to housing development found the process favoured developers with ties to the housing minister’s chief of staff. She also found the selection of lands removed was “biased,” “seriously flawed,” and was “dismissive of effective land-use planning.”

While acknowledging the process should have been better and promising to implement all but one of the report’s recommendations, Ford committed to moving ahead with the Greenbelt development. But several weeks later, Ford reversed his government’s decision, calling it “a mistake.”

Last August, the Ontario Provincial Police referred the matter to the RCMP in order to avoid what it called “any potential perceived conflict of interest.”

On October 10, the RCMP confirmed it had formally launched a criminal investigation into the government’s controversial Greenbelt land swap.

As the investigation into the scandal continues to linger over the Ford government, the premier said earlier this week that he would continue to push forward with his plans to build homes everywhere “other than the Greenbelt.”