Ontario legislature resumes as criticism against Doug Ford grows

Ontario’s legislature resumed on Monday in the wake of scandal involving a series of resignations from cabinet ministers and cabinet shuffles.

This follows a summer of dispute over the government’s decision to rezone part of the Greenbelt before reversing that decision late last week.

Doug Ford apologized for breaking his promise to leave the Greenbelt alone, but his promise to restore Greenbelt protections doesn’t mean that the issue is going away.

The premier was repeating the line that we’ve heard for months now. The government’s focus is to build 1.5 million new homes.

But the opposition says the Greenbelt scandal isn’t over despite Ford’s apology last week and his promise to protect the Greenbelt from now on.

WATCH MORE: Doug Ford announces reversal of Ontario Greenbelt land swap decision

Opposition leaders say they will keep putting pressure on Ford for concrete action and to support NDP legislation for Greenbelt restoration.

“What this premier does is he puts the interests of wealthy insiders ahead of Ontarians and that’s wrong and it needs to change,” Liberal interim leader John Fraser said.

“How can people trust this premier to work for them when he has spent the last five years putting his friends and insiders first,” NDP Leader Marit Stiles said. 

The government said it wouldn’t support an NDP bill on the Greenbelt, but will be bringing in its own legislation to protect the Greenbelt and more.

“I’ll be returning the 14 lands that were contemplated to be removed, those will be going back in. We will also be ensuring that the additional lands will be put back in. And we will have legislation that will ensure the boundaries of the greenbelt through legislation,” Housing Minister Paul Calandra said.

READ MORE: ‘Insufficient grounds’ for full probe into Ford stag and doe: commissioner

Now that Ford has backed down on the Greenbelt, MPP for Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas Sandy Shaw says she is demanding an investigation into the province’s decision to force Hamilton to expand its urban boundary into farmland.

“We need to get to the bottom not just of the Greenbelt scandal, but the same insiders got preferential access to make changes to our official plan,” Shaw said.

The Greenbelt scandal has left the government reeling in chaos and leaves questions about whether Ford will be able to hold on to his own job as Premier in the face of anger from inside his own caucus.