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In a scathing 941-page annual report to the legislature, auditor Shelley Spence also found Ford’s decision to close 10 supervised drug consumption sites near schools and daycares was made “without proper planning.” 

Nor was there anything done to mitigate an “increased risk of overdoses” likely to end up in hospital emergency rooms that are already overcrowded.

Against the backdrop of the $8.28-billion Greenbelt land swap scandal now under criminal investigation by the RCMP, Spence was withering about the Ontario Place project and Ford’s penchant for MZOs, a tool used to override local planning decisions.

Shuttered by the previous Liberal government in 2012, the lakeside icon will eventually be home to a Therme waterpark and spa, a relocated Ontario Science Centre and an expanded Live Nation concert venue as well as a parking garage that could cost between $280 million and $400 million.

“We found that the social and environmental benefits of redevelopment were not factored into the assessment framework or considered in the redevelopment, including in the lease negotiations with anchor tenants,” the auditor said, emphasizing “rules and guidelines ... were not followed.”

“We found that the (call for development) process and realty decisions were not fair, transparent or accountable to all participants,” the auditor said.

Spence, who succeeded long-time auditor Bonnie Lysyk in January, found Ontario Place redevelopment costs to the province have ballooned by a staggering $1.8 billion to an estimated $2.237 billion. At one point, the government anticipated it would cost as little as $335 million.

Her audit said that “contrary to the protocol” for negotiations involving developers, three unidentified suitors met privately with staff from the premier’s and minister’s offices in June and July 2019.

As well, some would-be bidders “had direct access to an Infrastructure Ontario (IO) executive,” who exchanged nine emails and had one phone call with Therme’s legal counsel after news broke about company’s plans.

Unusually, “minutes of meetings with participants were not kept” so it is not known whether everyone involved “had equal access to the information that was shared” at those closed-door confabs.

In a statement Tuesday, Therme said “the bid process was clear to us, and any questions we may have had were answered within the process prior to the close of the submissions deadline.”

“Therme Group followed IO’s process and fully complied with its requirements at every stage in our submission and negotiation,” the Austrian company said.

Deputy Premier Sylvia Jones pushed back at the auditor.

“We have not bypassed due process,” insisted Jones, defending the government’s actions on many fronts.

“It speaks to our interest and our motivation to get things done,” she said, in a nod to the Tories’ 2022 campaign slogan, Get It Done.

But NDP Leader Marit Stiles said the report exposes a “government that’s off the rails.”

“They do whatever they want at an enormous cost to the people of Ontario,” said Stiles.

Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie decried “Doug Ford’s shady backroom deals.”

“This report lays bare the results of that choice,” said Crombie.

º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøMayor Olivia Chow said the audit “seems like a big problem,” but has nothing to do with the city since Ontario Place falls within the “provincial mandate.”

Ontario Place for All, a community group opposed to the project, urged the government to “end the lease now” with Therme.

On MZOs, there appeared to be no rhyme or reason to the rezoning orders, which have fallen out of favour at Queen’s Park since the Mounties began probing the Greenbelt debacle 14 months ago.

“The ministry does not consistently provide the minister with timely and complete information relating to the projects proposed for an MZO,” wrote Spence, who said the orders to allow housing or industrial development on agricultural land increases its value by an average of 46 per cent.

“We also found there was no protocol and no apparent rationale for prioritizing some MZO requests over others,” the auditor said, pointing out the minister’s office “often selected which of the MZO requests to work on.”

The auditor examined all 114 zoning orders issued between 2019 and 2023 “and found none of them contained an assessment as to whether the MZO was necessary.”

She said MZO use has skyrocketed under Ford — between 1946 and 1998 there were an average of six such orders annually. From 1999 to 2018 that plunged to one MZO per year. But from 2019 through 2023 there were an average of 23 MZOs a year.

Municipal Affairs Minister Paul Calandra said the government is already rectifying the MZO process to weed out land speculators.

“Any MZO that we approve has to be followed up with a shovel in the ground. If it’s not, then I won’t hesitate to revoke it,” said Calandra.

Green Leader Mike Schreiner blasted the Tories’ “total lack of due diligence when reviewing MZOs that could pave over our farmland and wetlands without any consultation whatsoever.”

The annual audit was an indictment of the government’s opioid strategy, which passed into law Monday night.

Spence said closing 10 of 17 supervised consumption sites in favour of 19 HART Hubs (Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment) would leave a deadly service gap — something advocates have been feared since the plan was announced in August.

Opening next spring, the hubs will provide 375 supportive housing units and addiction recovery and treatment beds but no supervised drug consumption, safe supply of narcotics or needle exchanges.

Ford has called consumption sites a “failed policy” that are being restricted over concerns about community safety — including the killing of mother-of-two Karolina Huebner-Makurat by a stray bullet outside a Leslieville site last summer.

Spence, however, predicted community outrage could linger if drug users are overdosing on streets and discarding needles.

She went on to slam the province for taking too long to investigate potential fraud under the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program. In about 20 per cent of cases where misrepresentation was found, the applicant had already received permanent residency from the federal government.

Despite spending $100 million over the last decade to digitize services such as health card and driver’s licence renewals, more than half of service options still aren’t available online — and for those that are, customer satisfaction is low, she added.

Concerns were also raised about cybersecurity at ServiceOntario outlets —  70 per cent are privately operated and the rest are public — with the auditor saying some locations  “lacked proper controls to safeguard Ontarians’ personal data from unauthorized access” by staff.

Finally, Spence’s audit looked at government advertising, which tripled in one year to $103.5 million in 2023-24 from $33.7 million in 2022-23.

That’s “the most the government has ever spent on advertising in a year” and includes commercials promoting Ontario that aired during the Super Bowl and in NHL games.

The spending boost comes as Ford is considering a spring election, one year ahead of the scheduled June 2026 vote.

With files from Ben Cohen