Bonnie Crombie was on the phone with Premier Doug Ford’s office one Friday afternoon last May when her phone started “erupting, exploding.”
“I said, ‘Excuse me, I have to check my phone. Something's happened, maybe someone’s died,’” Ontario Liberal leadership candidate recalled in an interview with The Trillium this week.
No one had died, but the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing published a news release announcing that then-minister Steve Clark issued a minister’s zoning order (MZO) that blew up more than a decade of collaboration between Mississauga — where Crombie is the mayor, currently on leave — and the provincial government, on a major housing development.
“I was livid,” she recalled.
“I … found it very disrespectful that even though I was on the phone — (we) happened to be discussing the dissolution of Peel Region — that they wouldn’t have given me the heads-up that it was coming,” Crombie said.
Crombie, who is pitching herself to Ontario Liberal party members as the candidate who can get under the premier’s skin and defeat him, has butted heads with him on housing and municipal issues.
The Lakeview Village development on Mississauga’s eastern waterfront is a prime example.
“Of course” Ford should revoke the minister’s zoning order that effectively doubled the allowed size of the project, she told The Trillium.
Until mid-May, the city’s planning had set the total limit on housing units allowed in the various planned Lakeview Village mid- and highrise buildings at 8,050.
Near the end of the workday on Friday, May 12, the Ford government announced two minister’s zoning orders (MZOs) impacting Mississauga projects. One eliminated many Lakeview Village’s building height limits and allowed up to 16,000 housing units to be built there.
An MZO is a tool the provincial housing minister can use to effectively overrule or bypass local municipalities’ bylaws, planning decisions or processes.
In the case of the Lakeview Village development, the developers’ conglomerate — Lakeview Village Partners — won out with the Ford government over the local council’s wishes.
Crombie immediately opposed the Ford government’s move.
“We don’t have the road network in that area. We don’t have the commitment for the schools, the paramedic stations, the police stations, the fire stations … to build out a complete community,” Crombie said on May 15, the Monday that followed the MZO’s issuance. Crombie hadn’t officially entered the Liberal leadership race by that time, nor had she yet taken a leave of absence from being Mississauga’s mayor.
The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing’s May 12 news release said it’s “the government’s expectation that… the infrastructure required to service” Lakeview Village will be paid for by its developers.
The office of the Provincial Land and Development Facilitator (PLDF), an agency of the provincial housing ministry, is supposed to work with the City of Mississauga to ensure the Lakeview Village project goes smoothly and that needed infrastructure is built, according to the city’s website.
The longtime head of the PLDF Paula Dill left the agency last month, a few weeks after Ford announced the reversal of his government’s Greenbelt removals. Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Paul Calandra said in mid-October that a staffer was seconded from Infrastructure Ontario to take over from Dill. As of Friday, neither the agency’s web page nor the provincial government’s directory listed a replacement for Dill.
Calandra has been reviewing MZOs issued by Clark, his predecessor, since taking over his latest cabinet post on Sept. 4. Clark resigned that day amid the Greenbelt scandal.
From 2019 to 2023, the former housing minister signed off on north of 100 MZOs — far more than any previous government had.
Mississauga’s council has asked Calandra to “consider rescinding” the Lakeview Village MZO, while the developers involved in the project have also requested he “stand by” it, the Mississauga News reported last week.
Ford’s office didn’t respond to questions The Trillium asked it about the May 12 conversation. A spokesperson for Calandra gave a statement about the MZO but didn't say if it would be rescinded. "As Minister Calandra stated, we are undergoing a full review of Minister’s Zoning Orders to ensure they support the province’s goals of getting shovels in the ground faster to build at least 1.5 million homes by 2031," said Alexandru Cioban.
One month ago, Calandra said his review was “almost complete.”
“By and large, the vast majority of them, frankly, I’m not concerned with,” Calandra said on Oct. 23, adding that his focus in his review has been on “those (projects) that have been given an MZO but work has not started in any way.”
Lakeview Village’s construction isn’t underway yet.
The Office of the Auditor General of Ontario is also investigating the government’s process for determining and issuing MZOs.
Former auditor general Bonnie Lysyk’s Aug. 9 report on the Greenbelt escalated the controversy over the land swap into a full-blown scandal that ultimately cost Ford two cabinet ministers and several senior staff, and led to the ongoing criminal investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The Ford government is in the process of passing a pair of bills to return the Greenbelt land it removed and to undo most of the changes it made to a dozen municipalities' official plans within the last year. Each set of actions benefited developers, including to the tune of an estimated $8.3-billion or more in the case of the Greenbelt, Lysyk found from her investigation.
The latter bill to undo the changes to municipalities’ official plans also includes provisions meant to protect the government from legal action if it reverses or otherwise changes MZOs.
Some of the same developers that make up Lakeview Village Partners were also set to benefit from the province’s changes to municipalities’ official plans and its Greenbelt removals, before the Ford government reversed course on each.
Crombie spoke to The Trillium during a visit to Kelly Steiss, the Liberals’ candidate in the upcoming Kitchener Centre byelection, whom Crombie was meeting and campaigning with on Wednesday.
Ontario Liberal Party members will vote this weekend on whether to elect Crombie, Yasir Naqvi, Nate Erskine-Smith or Ted Hsu as their new leader. The party will announce the winner the following Saturday, Dec. 2 at an event in Toronto.
