GOLDSTEIN: Ford should’ve fired housing minister for Greenbelt failure

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It’s obvious Ontario Housing Minister Steve Clark should have resigned in the wake of two damning reports by the auditor general and integrity commissioner into the Ford government’s Greenbelt controversy.

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In failing to do so, Clark — who acknowledges he failed to do his job, that he accepts responsibility for it and that he apologizes to the people of Ontario — has turned the concept of “ministerial responsibility” into a farce.

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A real apology would have been for Clark to resign.

But the more politically significant question for Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government to answer is why didn’t Premier Doug Ford fire him?

It’s the Premier — not the auditor general or integrity commissioner — who sets the ethical standards for his cabinet ministers.

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In refusing to fire Clark, Ford has set that bar very low.

What makes it more controversial is Ford’s inconsistency on developing the Greenbelt.

He said he would not do it prior to the 2018 Ontario election that brought him to power — after a video surfaced of him saying he would open “a big chunk” of the Greenbelt to develop housing.

That remained Ford’s position until he reversed it following the 2022 election when he won a second majority government, which led to the current controversy.

As for Clark, it’s difficult to imagine a more obvious case where a cabinet minister failed to do his job.

His failure to provide proper oversight of what his chief of staff was doing in carving up 7,400 acres of Greenbelt land for housing, in the finding of integrity commissioner J. David Wake, “led to some developers being alerted to a potential change in the government’s position on the Greenbelt with the result that their private interests were furthered improperly.”

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Clark’s chief of staff Ryan Amato — the fall guy — has already resigned.

That makes Ford’s decision to keep Clark, Amato’s former boss, in cabinet, even more inexplicable given the commissioner’s ruling Clark broke two sections of the Members’ Integrity Act, noting “it may seem incredible that Minister Clark would have chosen to stick his head in the sand on such an important initiative being undertaken by his ministry but I believe that was exactly what he did.”

Given that, while in opposition, Clark called on Liberal cabinet ministers to resign when they failed to fulfill their ministerial responsibilities, surely even he knows he should have quit.

In recommending what penalty Clark should receive for breaking the integrity law, Wake actually recommended the least severe punishment short of no penalty — that the Legislature should reprimand him.

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Wake could have recommended suspending Clark from sitting in the Legislature for a period of time, or — the harshest penalty — declaring his seat vacant.

But what he could not do was recommend that Clark be removed from Ford’s cabinet, because that decision rests solely with the Premier.

As Wake noted in his report:

“I should be clear that my jurisdiction under the Act does not extend to enforcing ‘ministerial responsibility’, a constitutional principle whereby ministers are responsible to parliament and the public for everything that happens in their ministries.”

In fact it is Ford, and Ford alone, who decides who is selected to cabinet and who should be removed from it.

In failing to remove Clark, it’s Ford’s political integrity that is on the line here.

There was a time when Ontario premiers and cabinet ministers understood the concept of “ministerial responsibility” and acted accordingly — but that was long ago.

lgoldstein@postmedia.com

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