EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a new Village Media website devoted to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.
And Jesus said, “Go, and sin no more.”
Premier Doug Ford's office called together Ontario’s top political staffers to St. Paul's, an Anglican Church on Bloor Street, Thursday for a day of lessons on ethics and conflicts of interest.
Some 100-plus top staff from Ford's and his ministers' offices attended lectures at the church that spanned most of the workday on Thursday. They included deputy integrity commissioner Cathryn Motherwell, an academic whose expertise includes workplace coaching and communication, and Cabinet Office officials, sources involved told The Trillium.
It follows the government’s come-to-Jesus moment on the Greenbelt.
The scandal has so far cost the premier two cabinet ministers and forced reversals of the land removals and the approvals of a dozen municipalities' official plans.
The broader controversy has also led to numerous exits and moves by senior political staff, including a significant amount in the minister of municipal affairs and housing's office, which Paul Calandra took over from Steve Clark on Sept. 4.
At St. Paul's church on Thursday, Ontario's deputy integrity commissioner spoke to staffers about government employees' ethics law and conflict-of-interest rules, the commissioner's office's spokesperson said in an email.
"Motherwell delivered the session which covered the conflict of interest rules, using scenarios as a way to explain their application in real-world situations," spokesperson Michelle Renaud said. "The session also emphasized the role of the Integrity Commissioner as Ethics Executive to ministers’ staff."
Another session was led by Haesun Moon, an expert in workplace coaching and leadership, who sources said focused on communicating in the workplace. Moon could not be reached for comment on Friday.
Another session was led by senior officials in the Cabinet Office, the government ministry that advises and reports to the Office of the Premier, which partially focused on record-keeping procedures, sources said. The premier's office did not respond before publication to questions about the training that staff attended.
The PC staffers' seminar on Thursday was the latest in a series of internal actions from the Ford government in response to the revelations of the Greenbelt scandal ignited by the report Ontario's auditor general released on Aug. 9.
Then-auditor general Bonnie Lysyk, followed by Integrity Commissioner J. David Wake in his separate Aug. 30 report, was harshly critical of decisions that political staffers — including primarily Ryan Amato, the chief of staff to Clark at the time — made leading 7,400 acres of land to be removed from the Greenbelt.
Wake wrote that the evidence he collected during his investigation "paints a picture of a process marked by misinterpretation, unnecessary hastiness and deception."
Lysyk wrote in her report that although Ontarians may need "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 Ford government's plan — before the premier's Sept. 25 walk-back — was for developers to build 50,000 homes on the land it took out of the protected area. Lysyk estimated that the developers owning properties removed from the Greenbelt would see increases in the value of their land of over $8.3 billion.
Lysyk's report also included 15 recommendations for the government, which Ford's office has promised it will implement. The recommendations touch on staff roles and conduct, conforming to conflict-of-interest rules, and proper records retention.
In one move preceding staffers' Thursday seminar, the Ford government tapped PC stalwart Deb Hutton to help it navigate its ongoing crises and better manage future issues, as The Trillium first reported on Monday.
Hutton spoke last week with Ford's cabinet members' chiefs of staff "to share her experience in government and offer her perspective on preventing conflicts of interest," according to a spokesperson for the premier.
