afransen
Senior Member
This whole bubble is going to burst and become quite a scandal.
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Premier Doug Ford's Ontario
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ShonTron
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It also makes me a little suspicious of Algoma University’s presence in Downtown Brampton. It’s a tiny Northern Ontario university to begin with; why are they in Brampton? Universities at least aren’t partnering with private career colleges, but there can’t be a lot of student life or university experiences when the campus mostly is just a few leased floors in a small office building.
Are they filling a real need in Brampton for post secondary education in a young city of 700,000? Or just cashing in on international students?
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I suspect the latter!
lenaitch
Senior Member
It's been going on for years, certainly pre-dating the current government. Lakehead has a campus in Orillia, I believe Laurentian had one in Barrie and Nipissing I think had one in Bracebridge.
Kitchener is the boonies?
zang
Senior Member
Yes, though the Wynne government put a moratorium on it when it was found it was likely diminishing the reputation of our schools and providing an unequal level of education. Guess who reversed that?
lenaitch
Senior Member
I haven't noticed a rush of detached campuses but you could be right. If I recall, both Laurentian and Nipissing closed their campuses on their own.
The line between community colleges, as diploma-granting institutions, and universities, as degree-granting institutions, certainly has become blurred.
ShonTron
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Detached satellite campuses aren't a new thing - think of U of T Scarborough and Mississauga, which are both substantial, generally stand-alone facilities with on-site student housing, campus services and student services, recreational programs, and complete undergrad degree programs offered. York's Glendon campus is similar. The other one that comes to mind is Laurier-Brantford, which has helped to partially revitalize a moribund downtown there, but again, with a substantial presence that has grown over the last two decades (Laurier-Brantford is probably at the scale of what Brampton's hoping for).
Sheridan College, though it, too, has a huge international student component, at least has been serving pretty much all of its students on its three physical campuses - with Brampton's now being the largest (Oakville was until recently).
Laurentian University never should have expanded outside of its Sudbury campus - that might part of the reason why it went into financial distress. Unless you're willing and able to go all in with a full-service satellite campus, or providing a very niche education where you're partnering with specific outside organizations (and not private business schools), then you shouldn't be doing it.
Sheridan College, though it, too, has a huge international student component, at least has been serving pretty much all of its students on its three physical campuses - with Brampton's now being the largest (Oakville was until recently).
Laurentian University never should have expanded outside of its Sudbury campus - that might part of the reason why it went into financial distress. Unless you're willing and able to go all in with a full-service satellite campus, or providing a very niche education where you're partnering with specific outside organizations (and not private business schools), then you shouldn't be doing it.
just east of the creek
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At the risk of repeating myself re the endangerment of superior producing farmland in Ontario, can I draw your attention to a recent article in the Toronto Star that speaks to farmland outside of the recognized Greenbelt areas.
Titled: Doug Ford’s policies are putting Ontario’s farmland at risk
- By Anam Latif Contributor
- Aug 4, 2023
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WOW!
From: https://www.cp24.com/news/ontario-s...red-certain-developers-report-finds-1.6511533
The Ontario government’s decision to open up parts of the Greenbelt for housing “favoured certain developers,” lacked transparency and failed to consider environmental, agricultural and financial impacts, a scathing report by the province’s auditor general has suggested.
Of the 7,400 acres of land removed from the Greenbelt, the report found 92 per cent could be tied to three developers. Fourteen of the 15 sites were proposed directly by Housing Minister Steve Clark’s Chief of Staff.
The remaining site was proposed by a six-person team of public servants tasked with assessing land sites for possible removal.
The report also found Clark’s Chief of Staff altered criteria for land removal when the majority of the sites would not be approved within those parameters and implemented a three-week timeline for the assessment. The team, the report found, had to operate under strict confidentiality terms that prevented them from contacting partnering ministries as well as municipalities and conservation authorities.
Ninety-three confidentiality agreements across multiple ministries were signed over the course of the project, the report found.
The findings were released in a “Special Report on Changes to the Greenbelt” by Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk on Wednesday.
An investigation into the Doug Ford government’s decision to remove 7,400 acres of land from the Greenbelt for development began in January after a joint request from all three of the province’s opposition leaders.
The decision was first announced in November 2022, years after Premier Doug Ford promised not to touch the protected land. The argument at the time was that it was necessary as part of its pledge to build 1.5 million homes in 10 years.
The goal was to build at least 50,000 homes on the Greenbelt land, with construction beginning no later than 2025.
However, it was soon revealed that several large developers have purchased Greenbelt land since the Ford government was first elected in 2018 before the announcement had been made. At least one investment was made in September 2022, a month before the government revealed the land was among 15 sites being opened up for development.
Opposition leaders and advocacy groups have claimed developers were tipped off and given advanced notice of the government’s plans.
Premier Doug Ford has repeatedly said he did not know which sites would be opened until shortly before the announcement.
The auditor general’s report appears to confirm this fact; however, it also lays out a decision-making process that lacks transparency, communication and proper consultation.
“While the people of Ontario deserve prompt action to solve societal problems like those generated by a need for housing, this does not mean that government and non-elected political staff should sideline or abandon protocols and processes that promote objective and transparent decision-making based on sufficient, accurate and timely information,” the report reads.
Their office recommends the government re-evaluate its decision to change the Greenbelt boundaries, as both the premier and housing minister have communicated they were “unaware that the pre-selection of Greenbelt lands for removal was seriously flawed.”
In any normal democracy there would be multiple resignations plus maybe prosecutions and a total roll-back, here ??????
From: https://www.cp24.com/news/ontario-s...red-certain-developers-report-finds-1.6511533
The Ontario government’s decision to open up parts of the Greenbelt for housing “favoured certain developers,” lacked transparency and failed to consider environmental, agricultural and financial impacts, a scathing report by the province’s auditor general has suggested.
Of the 7,400 acres of land removed from the Greenbelt, the report found 92 per cent could be tied to three developers. Fourteen of the 15 sites were proposed directly by Housing Minister Steve Clark’s Chief of Staff.
The remaining site was proposed by a six-person team of public servants tasked with assessing land sites for possible removal.
The report also found Clark’s Chief of Staff altered criteria for land removal when the majority of the sites would not be approved within those parameters and implemented a three-week timeline for the assessment. The team, the report found, had to operate under strict confidentiality terms that prevented them from contacting partnering ministries as well as municipalities and conservation authorities.
Ninety-three confidentiality agreements across multiple ministries were signed over the course of the project, the report found.
The findings were released in a “Special Report on Changes to the Greenbelt” by Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk on Wednesday.
An investigation into the Doug Ford government’s decision to remove 7,400 acres of land from the Greenbelt for development began in January after a joint request from all three of the province’s opposition leaders.
The decision was first announced in November 2022, years after Premier Doug Ford promised not to touch the protected land. The argument at the time was that it was necessary as part of its pledge to build 1.5 million homes in 10 years.
The goal was to build at least 50,000 homes on the Greenbelt land, with construction beginning no later than 2025.
However, it was soon revealed that several large developers have purchased Greenbelt land since the Ford government was first elected in 2018 before the announcement had been made. At least one investment was made in September 2022, a month before the government revealed the land was among 15 sites being opened up for development.
Opposition leaders and advocacy groups have claimed developers were tipped off and given advanced notice of the government’s plans.
Premier Doug Ford has repeatedly said he did not know which sites would be opened until shortly before the announcement.
The auditor general’s report appears to confirm this fact; however, it also lays out a decision-making process that lacks transparency, communication and proper consultation.
“While the people of Ontario deserve prompt action to solve societal problems like those generated by a need for housing, this does not mean that government and non-elected political staff should sideline or abandon protocols and processes that promote objective and transparent decision-making based on sufficient, accurate and timely information,” the report reads.
Their office recommends the government re-evaluate its decision to change the Greenbelt boundaries, as both the premier and housing minister have communicated they were “unaware that the pre-selection of Greenbelt lands for removal was seriously flawed.”
In any normal democracy there would be multiple resignations plus maybe prosecutions and a total roll-back, here ??????
Northern Light
Superstar
I'm not holding by breath, but aside from reversing the Greenbelt watering down, this really ought to lead to the ministers resignation.
tiffer24
Senior Member
Developers could see an $8 billion increase to value of land now open for development
The Ontario government's process for choosing protected Greenbelt land to open up for housing development was heavily influenced by a small group of well-connected developers who now stand to make billions of dollars, the province's auditor general says.
In a widely-anticipated 95-page report released Wednesday, Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk offered a damning assessment of how the province selected sites last year for removal from the Greenbelt — a vast 810,000-hectare area of farmland, forest and wetland stretching from Niagara Falls to Peterborough that was meant to be off limits to development.
Lysyk found the selection process was largely controlled by Housing Minister Steve Clark's chief of staff — not non-partisan public servants — and was influenced by specific suggestions from developers with access to the chief of staff. Lysyk said Clark's chief of staff directed a small team of housing ministry bureaucrats in October 2022 who decided which sites would be removed. The work of the so-called "Greenbelt Project Team" was limited to three weeks and they were sworn to confidentiality, limiting their ability to assess the appropriateness of the land sites or to suggest alternatives, according to the report.
According to Lysyk's report, Clark's chief of staff identified 21 of the 22 sites the team considered. Ultimately, they settled on 15.
The process didn't consider agricultural, environmental and financial impacts of the decision, and involved little input from non-political planning experts or other stakeholders, including the general public and Indigenous communities, according to the report.
"What occurred here cannot be described as a standard or defensible process," Lysyk wrote in an introduction to the report.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-auditor-general-greenbelt-report-1.6930390
Richard White
Senior Member
Towered
Superstar
That's the standard populist playbook now - deny guilt, double down, gaslight and play the victim.
wopchop
Building Toronto
Great report. This was all so obvious to anyone in the construction industry, but it's excellent to see it investigated thoroughly.
Now hopefully we can hold the government accountable, but I'm not holding my breath. Plenty of PC party supporters are developer cucks.
That the corruption in this whole process was done so blatantly makes me very skeptical there will be consequences.
Now hopefully we can hold the government accountable, but I'm not holding my breath. Plenty of PC party supporters are developer cucks.
That the corruption in this whole process was done so blatantly makes me very skeptical there will be consequences.
wopchop
Building Toronto
There you have it.
They don't care.
They don't care.