Canada

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Premier Doug Ford has long insisted that he and his office was not involved in picking which Greenbelt and rural properties to approve for housing development, but there's growing evidence calling that claim into question.

The narrative from Ford and his officials since early August has been that all blame for both the Greenbelt debacle and the government's moves to force cities to sprawl lies with the former housing minister Steve Clark and his top political staffer.

Ford also denied he was involved in any changes the government imposed on municipalities that boosted the value of rural properties and said he can't remember meeting a developer about approving his Greenbelt land for housing.

They detail the inside story of the government's moves in the fall of 2022 to approve housing development on certain properties in the Greenbelt and to force changes in the official plans of Hamilton and Ottawa as well as Peel, York and Halton regions.

Many of the documents consist of emails between political staff and non-partisan bureaucrats on selecting properties for removal from the Greenbelt or expanding city boundaries to open up more rural land for development.

Despite that U-turn, an RCMP unit that specializes in political cases of corruption and breach of trusts has launched a criminal investigation into the original plan to open up Greenbelt land for development.

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