Well, for starters Ontario’s provincial government (the Progressive Conservatives led by Doug Ford) just handed an estimated $8b in “free” value to developers that owned previously-non-developable protected land on Ontario’s Greenbelt. Conveniently, those developers themselves had direct influence over which parcels would be unlocked. Additionally, some of those same developers made personal appearances at a cash fundraising event for the Premier’s daughter’s wedding.

> The political staffer took the instructions from two developers in envelopes handed to him at a September, 2022 dinner hosted by BILD, the principal lobby group for the residential building industry.

This is not conjecture, but rather the determination of a newly released report from the province’s auditor general.[1]

This is also the same province that leased a major highway, the 150km-long 407, to a private corporation for 99 years for just $3b in 1999 (in a deal facilitated again by the Progressive Conservatives). It is estimated this highway is worth over $30 billion dollars today.[2]

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Now, the Stellaris and Volkswagen deals are a federal/provincial partnership, but my goal here was to highlight that Ontario has a history of self-owns.

[1] https://ca.news.yahoo.com/ontario-auditor-general-unwraps-do...

[2] https://www.thespec.com/news/canada/birth-of-a-fiasco-how-th...