Last week Ford accused the federal Liberal government of stepping on the toes of provinces and municipalities by bringing forward the national Housing Accelerator Fund which allows Ottawa to work directly with municipalities on housing starts—3.5 million of which are needed across the country by 2030 according to the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation—and has already seen some success since its conception earlier this year.
Ford’s hypocrisy, calling out the feds for “jurisdictional creep” while he continues to run roughshod over municipal planning control in Ontario, was hard to ignore. His PC government is currently under criminal investigation by the RCMP following the Greenbelt land swap scandal, while his takeover of municipal land use decision making was at the centre of the developer-driven urban boundary expansion scandal. Ford and his PCs are also facing intense scrutiny including calls for more investigations into the use of Minister’s Zoning Orders to circumvent the municipal planning approval process.
Ford criticizes Ottawa’s funding for dense, affordable housing, defends his developer-driven sprawl agenda – thePointer.com, November 14, 2023