The former Conservative Solicitor General Bob Runciman says it’s time for the RCMP to come clean with Ontarians on their investigation into the Greenbelt scandal. 

In this morning's paper, he tells the Toronto Star’s excellent Robert Benzie:

“It’s unconscionable on their part not to make a public statement, give some sort of update with respect to where the investigation stands.” (Click “read more” below.)

Personally, I think it’s a disgrace.

People under suspicion can’t get on with their lives. After three years, memories fade.

Over the years I've blogged extensively on the Greenbelt scandal. From the word go, I was both intrigued and outraged that the developer Michael Rice had bought a huge slab of land in the Greenbelt at Bathurst and offered part of it to Southlake as the site of its second hospital.

Public Inquiry needed

In September 2023 I accused the Ford Government of being deeply corrupt and that a public inquiry was needed. That is still my view but, like everyone else, I wait to see what the RCMP comes up with.

I don’t know what’s causing the delay. It is impossible to find out how many officers the RCMP has assigned to the investigation. So I can’t compare the size of the Greenbelt investigation team with other comparable inquiries in the past.

Gas Plants

The closest parallel is the gas plants scandal which involved the destruction of Government records. That took two and a half years. It involved the investigation of possible criminal breach of trust involving the Premier’s Office.

The police are not a law unto themselves. 

Yes, they must investigate possible breaches of the criminal law and go where the evidence takes them. But, as Bob Runciman says, it is not in the public interest to have a long drawn-out investigation with, apparently, no end in sight.

This leisurely plodding, this lack of urgency is absolutely criminal.

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Click "read more" for the Star article.

Three years on, RCMP probe "ongoing"

Province's former solicitor general says Mounties should come clean with Ontarians on status

by Robert Benzie

Queen's Park Bureau Chief

As the RCMP invest­ig­a­tion into Premier Doug Ford's Green­belt land swap marks its third anniversary, a former Ontario soli­citor gen­eral says the Mounties should let the pub­lic know how the probe is pro­ceed­ing.

Bob Runci­man, a former Con­ser­vat­ive sen­ator who served as the province's top law­man for two stints between 1998 and 2003, said the fed­eral police force needs to come clean with Ontari­ans.

“It's uncon­scion­able on their part not to make a pub­lic state­ment, give some sort of an update with respect to where the invest­ig­a­tion stands,” Runci­man said in an inter­view.

It has been more than 1,100 days since the Mounties launched their probe into Ford's $8.28-bil­lion land swap imbroglio on Oct. 10, 2023.

Two cab­inet min­is­ters and two polit­ical aides — all of whom deny any wrong­do­ing — lost their jobs in the wake of the decision to allow developers to build hous­ing on 7,400 acres of envir­on­ment­ally sens­it­ive Green­belt land in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.

While Ford can­celled the scheme amid a firestorm of con­tro­versy, former hous­ing min­is­ter Steve Clark, former pub­lic and busi­ness ser­vice deliv­ery min­is­ter Kaleed Rasheed, and ex-aides Ryan Amato and Jae Trues­dell have been stuck in limbo ever since.

Clark is now gov­ern­ment house leader, but has not been able to return to cab­inet. Rasheed retired from polit­ics last year. Amato and Trues­dell now work in the private sec­tor.

Runci­man, a former chair of the Sen­ate's legal and con­sti­tu­tional affairs com­mit­tee, knows from per­sonal exper­i­ence what it's like to be a politi­cian under RCMP invest­ig­a­tion.

In 1998, he was forced to briefly step down from premier Mike Har­ris's cab­inet after the throne speech iden­ti­fied a young offender, which is a fed­eral crime. He was cleared by the Mounties after three months and returned to his min­is­terial post.

“I went through something in a some­what sim­ilar way, but in a much more minor issue. That took three months for something that should have taken a day,” he said.

“My view at the time was that the RCMP wanted to give the impres­sion, since you're deal­ing with a polit­ical issue, that they were giv­ing it the appro­pri­ate amount of scru­tiny. But this has gone bey­ond the pale now. It's three years.”

Runci­man — long a friend and polit­ical mentor to Clark, who rep­res­ents his old rid­ing of Leeds—gren­ville—thou­sand Islands and Rideau Lakes — said the delay is unfair to “the indi­vidu­als who have this cloud hanging over them, their repu­ta­tion stained to some degree because of the linger­ing issue.”

To that end, he has asked Con­ser­vat­ive law­makers in the House of Com­mons and the Sen­ate to press the Mounties to share the status of the invest­ig­a­tion and to “identify indi­vidu­als caught up in this mat­ter who have been determ­ined to not be sub­jects of interest.”

But the police are refus­ing to budge when it comes to releas­ing any inform­a­tion on their pro­gress.

“We have no updates for you at this time. Be assured that the RCMP is con­duct­ing a thor­ough invest­ig­a­tion. That invest­ig­a­tion is ongo­ing,” the force told the Star in a writ­ten state­ment.

“To pro­tect the integ­rity of the invest­ig­a­tion, we can­not provide inform­a­tion at this time,” it con­tin­ued.

“The RCMP must ensure that crim­inal invest­ig­a­tions are not com­prom­ised by shar­ing inform­a­tion pub­licly.”

But Runci­man countered that “the pub­lic interest” is not being served by three years of radio silence from the Mounties.

Sources, speak­ing con­fid­en­tially in order to dis­cuss internal delib­er­a­tions, told the Star detect­ives from the RCMP “O” Divi­sion's Sens­it­ive and Inter­na­tional Invest­ig­a­tions unit, the branch that invest­ig­ates cor­rup­tion and polit­ical crimes, have inter­viewed sev­eral dozen cur­rent and former Ford aides.

But it remains unclear whether police have met with any of the landown­ers or developers.

The premier, who has pledged to co-oper­ate with the Mounties, has not been inter­viewed by them.

“As we've always said, we will assist the RCMP in any way. Fur­ther ques­tions regard­ing the invest­ig­a­tion should be dir­ec­ted to the RCMP,” Ford's office said in a state­ment Tues­day.

In August 2023, the aud­itor gen­eral and the integ­rity com­mis­sioner each released reports that revealed developers with ties to the Tor­ies were “favoured” in the unusual pro­cess that led to the 15 par­cels of land rezoned for hous­ing.

Nine months earlier, a joint Star and Nar­whal invest­ig­a­tion revealed a major­ity of those prop­er­ties had been bought up when the land was still under Green­belt pro­tec­tion.

Four­teen of the 15 par­cels of land were selec­ted by Amato, at the time Clark's chief of staff, with input from some developers.

The former aide, who was the first to resign after the watch­dog reports were released, has always main­tained he was just fol­low­ing orders.

Clark stepped down as hous­ing min­is­ter weeks before Ford aban­doned the Green­belt devel­op­ment.

Rasheed quit as busi­ness min­is­ter and was forced from the Tory caucus after mis­lead­ing the integ­rity com­mis­sioner about a 2020 Las Vegas trip with Shakir Rehmatul­lah, a Ford pal who had stakes in two small par­cels totalling about 23 acres that were ini­tially removed from the Green­belt.

Trues­dell was on that Vegas vaca­tion along with Amin Mas­soudi, the premier's prin­cipal sec­ret­ary at time.

Rasheed, who now works in the private sec­tor, has always insisted he made “an hon­est mis­take” when he told the eth­ics watch­dog the trip had taken place eight weeks earlier than it had.

The former Mis­sissauga East— Cooks­ville MPP was not involved in any Green­belt decisions, although he and Rehmatul­lah were long­time friends. The integ­rity com­mis­sioner told him last year that his case was closed.