Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered conversations that matter

In cities and towns across Ontario — and at Queen’s Park and Parliament Hill — our journalists work for you. Their mission is to dig for answers and tell you what they find. This new podcast from Village Media — ‘Closer Look’ — is all about the stories we tell. Every weeknight, hosts Michael Friscolanti and Scott Sexsmith go beyond the headlines with insightful, in-depth conversations featuring our reporters and editors, leading experts, key stakeholders and big newsmakers.

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Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered conversations that matter

The ‘green’ in Greenbelt

August 17, 2023 • Jessica Smith-Cross, Aidan Chamandy, Michael Friscolanti, Scott Sexsmith • Season 2 • Episode 30

0:00 | 36:39

This week on Inside the Village, Scott and Frisco unpack the recent bombshell report from Ontario’s auditor-general, who found that Doug Ford’s government gave “preferential treatment” to prominent developers during last year’s controversial Greenbelt changes. Bonnie Lysyk’s report reads like a hidden camera, explaining how certain developers used their “direct access” to a senior political staffer to push for their plots of land to be removed from the Greenbelt. Here to explain the revelations are two journalists who know the story as well as anyone: Jessica Smith-Cross and Aidan Chamandy of The Trillium, Village Media’s online news source at Queen’s Park.