Details

Southlake Regional Health Centre was offered Greenbelt land for a nominal fee on 1 November 2022 – three days before the Ford Government announced that it would be opening up parts of the Greenbelt for development. Southlake has records of that key 1 November 2022 meeting and will release them to me – or not – by 3 April 2023. Arden Krystal

It seems to me people were tipped off in advance that the Government's policy on the Greenbelt was about to change and there was an opportunity to make millions of dollars overnight.

Backstory: On 1 November 2022 an in-person meeting was held involving the Mayor of King, Steve Pellegrini, Michael Rice and representatives of Southlake Regional Health Centre. At that meeting Michael Rice, the new owner of the Greenbelt lands in King south of Miller’s Side Road and west of Bathurst (the Rice lands), offered some of his lands to Southlake for a nominal fee. This meeting took place three days before the public announcement by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Steve Clark, that certain lands were to be removed from the Greenbelt and opened up for development. These included the Rice lands which were removed from the Greenbelt in December.

Rice’s company Green Lane Bathurst GP Inc bought the huge 687 acre tract of Greenbelt on 15 September 2022 for $80M from Bob Schickedanz, then President of the Ontario Home Builders Association.

Bob Schickedanz, Luca Bucci, Steve Clark

At the time of the sale the Chief Executive of the Ontario Home Builders Association was Luca Bucci who had previously served as Chief of Staff to Steve Clark from January 2021 until April 2022.

I have always found it perplexing that Schickedanz sold the land for $80M when he must have known that it would be worth many times that amount if it could be opened up for development. 

Indeed, the estate agent acting for Bob Schickedanz, John Dunlap, advertised the 687 acres as a 

“prime land banking opportunity”

in a strategic location south of the proposed highway 400-404 link and where

“the surrounding municipalities are almost out of development land”

Dunlap, who owns land immediately adjacent to the Rice lands at the intersection of Bathurst and Davis Drive West, served on the Board of Southlake until September 2022.

The land Dunlap, acting as agent, sold to Rice had been in the ownership of the Schickedanz Brothers since 30 October 2000.

Freedom of Information

Last month I filed a Freedom of Information request with Southlake Regional Health Centre asking for sight of all records held by them – including emails, phone call and meeting records – relating to that 1 November 2022 meeting.

Earlier today Southlake told me: 

“The disclosure of the records that are relevant to your request may affect the interests of a third party. The third party whose interests may be affected are being given the opportunity to make representations about the release of the record.” 

and that

“A decision on whether or not the record will be disclosed will be made by April 3, 2023, pursuant to section 28 of Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, which is attached to this letter as Schedule “A”.”

(Click “Read more” to see the Schedule)

Pellegrini says nothing

On 24 January 2023 I wrote to Mayor Pellegrini about the I November 2022 meeting: 


Last month I filed a Freedom of Information request with your municipality asking for sight of records held by the Township relating to the commitment given by the landowner of certain Greenbelt lands in King to provide the necessary lands for the Southlake Regional Health Centre for a nominal fee.

This commitment was reflected in the motion you moved at the Committee of the Whole on 7 November 2022 which was carried unanimously.

On 20 January 2023 the Township clerk, Denny Timm, told me that no responsive records were located but he was able to tell me that the "nominal fee" commitment was conveyed verbally to you during an in-person meeting with Rice Group and Southlake representatives on November 1, 2022.

Would it be possible for you to let me know who called the in-person meeting on 1 November 2022 and for what purpose? 

And did you ask the landowner for his evidence that the lands south of Miller’s Side Road, east of Dufferin and west of Bathurst were developable?

As this is a matter of public interest I very much hope you will feel able to share this information with me.

The Mayor has not yet replied.

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Details

My spies tell me that Tom Vegh is pleading for money to clear his election deficit and avoid disqualification for overspending. 

Four months after the election Tom is still struggling to find the cash to pay for his (very successful) campaign.

In the hullabaloo and excitement of the campaign he rashly promised he would not take money from developers or people who do business with the Town – or had done business with the Town.

That promise has come back to haunt him.

Tom now has a mighty problem. Lots of his developer friends have done business with the Town and they can’t or won’t bail him out. The Glenway developer, Marianneville’s Joanne Barnett, is a case in point. 

Anxiety

Adding to his anxiety, Tom knows that I intend to go through his donations with a fine tooth comb to make sure everything is tickety-boo and there is no developer money in there.

In last October’s election Vegh told voters their donations would be collected.

“Your Donation Can Help. Donate to the Tom Vegh Re-election Campaign by using the form below to make arrangements for your donation to be picked up.”

So if you want to bail out Tom get in touch with him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and ask him to collect your donation. In person. He will be grateful.

Tom is on York Region’s Audit Committee so he knows how to manage your money, if not his own.

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Update on 7 March 2023: From Newmarket Today: Deputy Mayor declares election campaign deficit

Details

Our neighbour to the north, East Gwillimbury, was the fastest growing municipality in the nation in the 2021 census.

Could we be about to see a huge new development just north of Green Lane, on the other side of Lowe’s?

Development to our immediate north would of course impact massively on Newmarket but I am left wondering how these eye-catching plans will work out in practice. Without servicing – sewage and wastewater – they are dead in the water. 

The former North York Sewage Solutions project was scrapped by Doug Ford in the run up to last year’s Provincial election. With wastewater going south to Lake Ontario instead of north to Lake Simcoe there is no possibility of development on the site for years.

The land is in a designated settlement area outside the Greenbelt.

That is precisely the kind of land designation that would be perfect for a new Southlake.

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Details

The Town of Newmarket has started posting the details of candidates’ election expenses from the municipal election last October. 

And the newly re-elected Tom Vegh tells the Town Clerk he has a campaign deficit and wants the campaign period to be extended so he can find the money to pay it off.

It’s déjà vu. We’ve been here before.

Maxed-out

Asking for an extension means he can’t cover his deficit by using his own money to clear the debt himself. It follows he must have maxed out on his self-financing limit which, for candidates for Regional Councillor, was set at $17,241.40

A candidate can only accept contributions or incur campaign expenses during the campaign period which, for the October 2022 election, ended on 3 January 2023.

The deadline for candidates to file their Financial Statement with the Town Clerk is 2pm on 31 March 2023. But candidates can file their Financial Statement before that date if they have formally ended their campaign.

The official guidance on Campaign Finance issued by the Province says this: 

If you have extended your campaign to pay down a deficit, the end date for the extended campaign period will be the earliest of:

      • The day you notify the clerk in writing that you will be ending your campaign and not accepting any more contributions
      • June 30, 2023

Money from Developers 

After the 2018 election - when Vegh was first elected as Regional Councillor and Deputy Mayor – he similarly asked for more time to pay off the deficit. Back then he took thousands of dollars from people intimately associated with the development industry - not just before but also after the election - to pay off the $30,000 deficit that he had run up in the campaign.

If those developers had not bailed him out he would have been unable to pay these debts himself (because of the self-financing rules) and would have automatically forfeited the office. 

In October 2022 I ran against Tom Vegh for the position of Regional Councillor/Deputy Mayor.

Vegh won convincingly with 9,396 votes to my 5,455. 

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Details

Dave Kerwin died unexpectedly on 6 February 2023, age 84. The news came as a huge shock to everyone who knew him. To me he seemed indestructible and he would go on forever. When he retired from municipal politics in 2018 he was the longest serving councillor in Canada. An astonishing 39 years. 

On Monday, Newmarket councillors paid tributes to Dave Kerwin, led by the Town’s Mayor, John Taylor. In an engaging riff, the Mayor reminds us that whenever Dave was asked how he was doing he’d say:

“Never been better.”

And that captured the essence of the man. Living in the moment. Enjoying life to the full. 

The councillors all struck the right note. Together they painted a picture of Dave we would all recognise. Approachable, convivial and someone who enjoyed the company of others. He laughed a lot. He was intensely interested in the world around him. His was a life well lived.

I remember him telling me the secret of being a successful councillor. Just walk the ward. Get to know it inside out. And talk to people. 

Renaissance Man

But there was another Dave Kerwin - the renaissance man who rose early in the morning to study. He spoke Latin, French, German and Spanish but carried this erudition very lightly. 

I was always interested in the techniques he employed as a practising politician. I told him that in his immensely long career he flattered his opponents into submission.

We had an email correspondence for over a decade. He would regularly comment on my blogs, congratulating me on my powers of perception and my insight before putting forward the contrary view. His flattery often went completely over the top – and he knew it. We used to josh about it. He would sign off: 

“Cheers and love life!”

Soft spot

I had a soft spot for Dave Kerwin. I wanted to know more about his politics and how he saw the world and what needed to change. (Photo right from Ron Eibel: at the candidates' "Meet and Greet" at the Newmarket Community Centre on 27 September 2022)

Years ago, he urged Newmarket to buy the former 140 acre Glenway golf course when it was offered to the Town for under $10M. He told me it broke his heart when the Town decided not to. Glenway was certainly one of the most consequential decisions the Town has ever taken. On that one, I was on Dave Kerwin’s side.

Curious

Dave was always looking to the future, thinking about the long term. He was intellectually curious. He liked provoking people into taking a position on things. He saw himself as a gadfly.

In his mind’s eye he saw a changed Newmarket studded with high-rise buildings of 15-25 storeys. He cared about the environment and conservation. He fretted about the collapse in voter turnout, people tuning out politics. He worried about young people who believed they would never be in a position to buy a house. He fumed about building land being controlled by a handful of wealthy families.

Controversially (for some) he supported a wealth tax. He told me no one person should be allowed to accumulate $200B and that 80% of the world’s wealth should not be in the hands of 5% of the population. Right on!

He was someone who believed in fiscal responsibility and early last year he warned me to expect 10% inflation in Canada. He wasn’t far off the mark.

Kerwin's crystal ball

He liked predicting future events, often calling on me to bet with him on some outcome or other. I figured I was being set up to fail and never took him up on it – even though no money would ever change hands!

He predicted Doug Ford would win another term, backed by the developers and their money. But a few months earlier he had told me with equal certainty Ford would not win a majority and that the Bradford Bypass would be defeated by a coalition of NDP and Liberal members of the new legislature. Dream on!

Raconteur

Dave will be remembered as a great raconteur. He and Erika were restless travellers, moving from one adventure to the next. He would write to me from Mendoza, in Argentina, describing it as “the capital of Malbec”. I picture him with a glass of wine in his hand.

In St Lucia he tells me he is going lobster snagging and mango picking in a beautiful balmy breeze. And afterwards he relaxes with a dollop of rum in his milk. From Barbados to the Falkland Islands and from a thousand other destinations he has a story to tell. But after his globe-trotting with Erika he is always glad to be back home.

A year ago this month, he was back in “wonderful Newmarket” enjoying cross-country ski-ing. In his eighties!

In the summer he loved his garden, watching the birds, sipping calvados. Enjoying retirement.

Just after Covid arrived in Canada in early 2020 Dave told me he didn’t fear the virus – and at that stage there was no known cure. 

He quotes the poet John Donne:

“A short sleep past and I shall awake eternally.”

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Update on 19 February 2023: From Newmarket Today: He loved to help. Family and friends remember Newmarket's Dave Kerwin

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