The board of the agency that safeguards Toronto’s watershed elected a new chairperson after unusual behind-the-scenes lobbying that included calls from a developer and a Progressive Conservative MPP, the Star has learned.

The agency, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA), helps protect the Green Belt, Oak Ridges Moraine and valleys of the Humber, Don and Rouge rivers from flooding, erosion, development that could harm water quality and flow toward Lake Ontario, and other threats.

The lobbying happened as the development industry told Premier Doug Ford’s government that its coming “housing supply action plan” should end “mandate creep” — overstepping authority and stifling homebuilding — by TRCA and Ontario’s 35 other conservation authorities.

Ford was captured on tape during the 2018 election campaign promising developers he would “open a big chunk” of the Green Belt to development but later vowed to safeguard the protected land. More recently critics said part of Bill 66 introduced in December would allow municipalities to open the Green Belt. After a backlash the Ford government promised to drop that section.

Jennifer Innis, the Caledon regional councillor who joined the TRCA board in 2014, became the new chairperson on Jan. 25 in an 11-10 vote over the incumbent, former Toronto city councillor Maria Augimeri, who led the board for four years after decades on it.

Innis, a PC political staffer in the early 2000s for ex-premier Ernie Eves and two cabinet ministers, said in an email to the Star she does not know why people urged fellow board members to support her candidacy and that “as a board, we will continue to advocate to protect and restore our watersheds.”

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Augimeri, defeated as a councillor in last fall’s election, remains on the board at least until Toronto council picks new appointees. She said developers constantly pressure the TRCA to quickly issue permits for construction that could impact wetlands, ravines and other sensitive green space.

“We have people sitting around the (board) table there now who are there for development interests, not for the interests of the drinking water for future generations,” Augimeri said in an interview, adding builders will seek any advantage. “That should not only worry people, that should frighten people.”

The TRCA has 28 members — half from Toronto including four citizen appointees, and half local or regional councillors representing the regional municipalities of Peel, Durham, and York, the Township of Adjala-Tosorontio, and the Town of Mono.

The agency says its purpose is to “protect, conserve and restore natural resources and develop resilient communities through education, the application of science, community engagement, service excellence and collaboration with our partners.”

A rare time the TRCA made news was in 2012 when it refused to let then-Toronto mayor Rob Ford buy parkland behind his house. Augimeri, a left-leaning councillor who often crossed swords with the mayor and his then-councillor brother Doug, spoke against allowing the purchase.

Innis announced not long before the Jan. 25 annual election for chair and vice-chair that she would challenge Augimeri. She says she did so because “protection of our watersheds is paramount” and climate change effects mean “our community partners are facing extreme budget pressures and complex challenges.

“I feel strongly that we must have a chair that has an understanding of the differing needs across our watersheds and who can be a strong advocate to ensure the preservation of our natural heritage,” she said in an email.

Innis said nobody outside the TRCA encouraged her to run. She said she was contacted by one development company that was looking to confirm rumours she was running. She refused to name the developer.

The Star tried to contact all TRCA board members. Interviews with 20 of them reveal that at least three were lobbied by non-TRCA people, all to vote for Innis.

Several members said they could not recall lobbying by non-TRCA members regarding the chair’s position in the past.

Jim Karygiannis, a Toronto councillor, said he was surprised to get a call from his provincial counterpart, Scarborough-Agincourt PC MPP Aris Babikian, “wanting me to vote for Innis.

“I’ve been lobbied on this from everybody but the kitchen sink,” Karygiannis said, adding a taxi driver who has helped him put up election signs in the past called to ask about the vote and, sounding unclear about the TRCA, relayed a request — “Don’t vote for the Italian woman.”

“I think the developers are looking at the TRCA and that’s why they wanted to get rid of Maria Augimeri,” said Karygiannis, who supports Augimeri but missed the vote because he had to visit schools over road safety measures.

“Maria would stand in their way. Probably this was a play by the province and they wanted Maria out of the way. They probably want to attack the Green Belt.”

Babikian has not responded to the Star’s requests for comment for this article.

A spokesperson for Ontario Environment Minister Rod Phillips dismissed Karygiannis’s comments.

“Jim Karygiannis is an elected Toronto city councillor and former Liberal MP who speaks and votes for himself not the Ontario government or the PC Caucus,” Andrew Brander said in an email.

“Minister Philips thinks highly of Councillor Innis, and has congratulated her on her election as chair.”

Brander did not answer a question from the Star about whether the minister took any action that could have influenced the TRCA election.

The Ford government’s commitment to conservation authorities is outlined in the “Made-in-Ontario Environment Plan” released last fall, he said. It “details that we will work in collaboration with municipalities and stakeholders to ensure that conservation authorities focus and deliver on their core mandate of protecting people and property from natural hazards, and conserving natural resources.”

Kevin Ashe, a Pickering regional councillor and TRCA member who voted for Innis, told the Star he was contacted by a “government relations consultant,” whose clients he does not know, and a “principal of a development company” suggesting he back the Caledon councillor for chair.

He refused to name them, saying “they were private conversations.”

“While I know both on a professional/business basis I can’t speak to motive,” Ashe said, calling such lobbying “a bit unusual” but not important to his choice.

Developers “have a vested interest in the TRCA and how the province impacts their investments. That’s a valid observation of it,” said Ashe who ran unsuccessfully for the Ontario PC party when now-Toronto Mayor John Tory was PC leader, and is the son of 1980s PC cabinet minster George Ashe.

Toronto Councillor Anthony Perruzza said he was called by a “labour representative” involved in the construction industry.

“I think the rationale was something like ‘one person loves developers, one person hates developers’ and you should vote for Jennifer Innis,” said Perruzza, who refused to identify the caller and said the conversation ended quickly when he said he would vote for Augimeri.

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Innis said as chair she will not weaken the TRCA approach to development.

“We have a strong policy framework to protect our watersheds and a clear mandate under the Conservations Authorities Act,” she said. “I am confident that, as a board, we will continue to advocate to protect and restore our watersheds.”

Former Toronto councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker, who voted for Augimeri, said he has full confidence in Innis’s ability to safeguard the GTA’s watershed. He suspects developers feel more comfortable with a 905-belt councillor as chair than a left-leaning Toronto politician.

“I think a part of the development industry wants to destroy the TRCA,” De Baeremaeker said. “If a developer wants to build right up to a stream and the TRCA says no, that’s 10 houses and an extra $10 million in revenue the developer is losing, and they freak out.

“I think the provincial government is going to try to weaken all the conservation areas across the province ... but I worked by Jennifer Innis’s side for four years and I have absolutely no concerns.”

De Baeremaeker said Vic Gupta, a Progressive Conservative who recently left a position in the Toronto mayor’s office, raised the issue in a phone chat, asking who would get his vote as TRCA chair, but did not lobby him.

Gupta, at the moment “happily unemployed,” told the Star that Innis called him before the election and asked for his thoughts about the Toronto TRCA members, but did not ask him to do anything.

Gupta said he spoke with no other TRCA members. He did talk about the election, however, with Luke Robertson, Tory’s chief of staff, in a separate conversation.

“Luke raised it, he said he was getting calls from folks about it and asked if I knew Jennifer,” Gupta said. “The mayor’s office didn’t seem all that interested, to be honest.”

Robertson did not respond to a request for comment from the Star. Answering on behalf of Robertson and Tory, Don Peat, the mayor’s executive director of communications, said: “When people reached out to the mayor’s office about the TRCA chair election, we indicated our preference,” Peat said, noting Augimeri lost her city council seat.

“The mayor knows Jennifer Innis and had confidence she would do a good job.”

Jennifer McKelvie, a rookie city councillor, was among the half of Toronto representatives absent from the TRCA annual general meeting. She said a family emergency kept her from the vote and she was not lobbied.

Jack Heath, regional councillor for the City of Markham, was re-elected TRCA vice-chair. He voted for Augimeri, was not lobbied by any outsiders and said he has full confidence in Innis to resist developer pressures and protect the watershed.

Heath, on the TRCA board since 2007, said he shelved thoughts of running for chair himself when Augimeri, first elected chair in 2014, sought re-election despite losing her council seat.

There is a loose tradition of the chairmanship alternating between the councillors for the 416 and 905 regions after the incumbent decides to step down, he said.

“I have no concerns whatsoever with the new board or with the new Ford government for that matter,” Heath said. “Taking care of the environment is very high in the public’s mind,” along with the value of the Green Belt and Oak Ridges Moraine, he said, and that would act as a check on any efforts to weaken environmental protections.

Heath said there are many people who think the TRCA permitting process could be accelerated, and he is not opposed to doing so “but that requires we ensure the standards are kept high.”

David Wilkes, president of the Building Industry and Land Development Association, voice of the development industry in the Toronto region, said his members are worried that conservation authorities are exceeding their legislated powers and that is intensifying the region’s housing crisis.

“That mandate is to protect watersheds, natural hazards such as flooding, erosion ... That’s important work but when they overstep that prime core important responsibility, what we call mandate creep, it lengthens the development application review process unnecessarily,” Wilkes said, adding he has expressed that view to the provincial government and municipalities.

While population is booming, it can take 10 to 20 years from land purchase to construction of homes or employment buildings, Wilkes said, adding BILD is telling the Ford government and municipalities they must streamline the approval processes.

Also, conservation authorities must start requiring permits only for true watershed areas, said Wilkes, who said he couldn’t speak to specifics about the TRCA because he was not familiar with them.

Meanwhile the Vaughan-based TRCA itself is in the midst of a reorganization that coincides with the departure of Carolyn Woodland, the agency’s longtime and highly respected senior director of planning, green space and communications.

The planner and landscape architect had since 2002, according to her biography with the Ontario Professional Planners Institute, overseen the TRCA’s environmental planning, development review, policy and environmental assessment functions. Through a board member, she declined to comment for this article.

In a recent memo to TRCA staff obtained by the Star, chief executive John MacKenzie said a corporate review launched in 2018 has triggered changes to “improve client satisfaction and service delivery and reflect the strong interest of our board and partners in responding to changing legislation and continued growth pressures in our jurisdiction through continuous improvement.”

The Star’s request for an interview with MacKenzie was denied by TRCA communications staff.

David Rider is the Star’s City Hall bureau chief and a reporter covering Toronto politics. Follow him on Twitter: @dmrider

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