(Yan Theoret/CBC)Ī company controlled by Rice paid $80 million for five parcels of land in the Township of King, located about 50 kilometres north of Toronto, on Sept. De Gasperis is president of the Vaughan, Ont.-based Tacc Group of companies.Ī company controlled by Rice paid $80 million for five parcels of land in King Township, north of Toronto, in September - less than two months before the Ontario government said sections of that land would be opened for development. Rice's filing came just a week after another developer who benefited from the Greenbelt decision - Silvio De Gasperis - made a similar application. 'The auditor general's role is not to investigate, audit, and/or examine private citizens under oath, or go on fishing expeditions with respect to their private corporate affairs,' the filing says. In the court filing that was first reported by The Toronto Star, Rice argues the summons oversteps the auditor general's authority to scrutinize provincial government finances. The Greenbelt was created in 2005 to permanently protect agricultural and environmentally sensitive lands from development and covers some 810,000 hectares area of farmland, forest and wetland from Niagara Falls to Peterborough. Lysyk has been looking at the provincial government's removal of environmental protections from more than 2,995 hectares of land - while adding other land elsewhere - so that 50,000 homes can be built.

Michael Rice, CEO of Rice Group, filed a notice of application with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on July 5 seeking to block or delay a summons from Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk that he be interviewed and provide records related to land he owns in the area that is now cleared for development. A second prominent Toronto-area developer who owns land that was removed from southern Ontario's protected Greenbelt last year is going to court to avoid answering questions from the province's auditor general.

Peters township municipal