Still looking green, for now. (CBC News – Patrick Morrell)

Ontario’s ruling conservative party has recently found itself in hot water after taking nearly 3,000 hectares of mostly agricultural land out of the protected Greenbelt around Toronto and opening it up for development. Technically this was part of a “swap,” with 3,800 hectares being newly included in the Greenbelt elsewhere. The government says that the land was needed to build more affordable housing in the province, but few people are buying that argument.

Premier Doug Ford now says there will be a re-evaluation of the land swap deal after two government watchdogs raised serious questions about how it happened, including a report from Ontario’s auditor general that found the process was heavily influenced by a small group of politically connected developers. Housing Minister Stephen Clark has stepped down amid all the controversy.

Opposition parties, and many public voices, are calling for the lands to be returned to the Greenbelt. Indeed, one of the auditor general’s 15 recommendations made in their report was for the land swaps to be reconsidered.

In response, that was the one report recommendation that Ford’s government refused to even consider. In Ford’s statement that he will re-evaluate the process he even suggests that the result may be that he takes more land out of the Greenbelt.

I could be wrong, but I feel safe in saying that that the decision to take the land out of the Greenbelt is not going to be reversed. According to the auditor general’s report the owners of the land (not farmers, but the developers who bought it up) stand to see the value of it rise by $8.3 billion.

$8.3 billion.

It doesn’t matter what environmental groups and government watchdogs say. It doesn’t matter if ministers resign in disgrace. It doesn’t matter if governments are voted out of office. It doesn’t even matter if people go to jail. With so much money at stake literally nothing else matters. That land isn’t going back into the Greenbelt.

Update, September 21 2023:

I called it wrong.