A former Ford government staffer at the centre of the Greenbelt scandal is taking Ontario’s privacy watchdog to court in an attempt to fight a legal order requiring him to be questioned under oath about his use of personal emails to conduct government business.
For nearly a year, Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner has been trying to compel a former senior government staffer, who worked for then-housing minister Steve Clark, to turn over any personal emails related to the Greenbelt decision-making.
Premier Doug Ford’s November 2022 decision to remove 7,400 acres of protected land from the Greenbelt triggered a scandal after damning investigations from two legislative watchdogs highlighted how developers were allowed to influence the process over which lands were removed.
Both the auditor general and the integrity commissioner chronicled the chief of staff’s role in allegedly dealing with developers, the premier’s office and civil servants as the government rushed to open up land for development.
The same probes suggested staff had been using personal devices to communicate critical information during the decision-making process, instead of the exclusive use of official devices.
Shortly after, Global News filed a freedom of information request for any Greenbelt-related emails contained in former chief of staff Ryan Amato’s personal account — a request that was eventually appealed in 2023.
Almost two years later, in spring 2025, the IPC ordered the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing to work with Amato to find the files. Months later, the transparency watchdog says Amato failed to cooperate with its request and issued a subpoena requiring him to attend an interview under oath.
Amato, the IPC said, has now asked an Ontario court to intervene and has asked for a judicial review of the situation.
The premier’s office said that the government had made “several formal requests to the affected party to provide the ministry with any emails relevant to this matter.”
Amato did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
In November 2022, amid a housing affordability crisis, the Ford government announced it would remove 7,400 acres of land from the Greenbelt to spur the development of new homes.
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The significant policy shift was triggered by Premier Ford, who directed his minister of housing to look into Greenbelt land swaps in a post-election mandate letter.
The integrity commissioner and auditor general found the task was then handed to Amato, who served as chief of staff. The mandate letter kicked off a whirlwind few months in which the government rushed through the removal of land, which the auditor general calculated could have benefited developers to the tune of more than $8 billion.
During her investigation, the auditor general pointed out that staff appeared to be routinely using personal emails to communicate, rather than official accounts.
“We noted that political staff received emails from lobbyists and other external parties on their personal email accounts that they then forwarded to their government email,” the auditor general wrote in the summer of 2023.
“Conversely, there were occasions when government emails were forwarded by political staff from their government accounts to their personal email accounts.”
After the auditor general’s report was published, Global News filed — and then appealed — a freedom of information request for all communications in Amato’s personal account with the word “Greenbelt.”
The IPC appeared to reject arguments from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, which said it no longer had access to Amato, and issued an order in April for Amato and the government to search for potential emails in his personal account.
Request for judicial review filed
Months after it ordered another search to take place, the IPC appears to have lost patience.
In August, the adjudicator overseeing the appeal wrote to Amato, asking him to send “the information I needed to complete my inquiry.” According to a letter from the adjudicator, Amato “did not provide a substantive response.”
A few months later, at the end of October, the adjudicator issued a summons for Amato to be examined under oath. The interview was set for December.
The IPC has the power to compel people to testify under oath, with the same rules as a court of law.
According to the IPC’s letter, the December summons was delayed to January. Then, Amato filed for judicial review.
“On January 9, 2026, the IPC received notice that the affected party has filed an application for judicial review of the summons,” part of the IPC letter said.
Personal emails and phone calls
Amato is not the only Progressive Conservative figure who has faced questions about using his personal device or accounts to communicate while in government.
Earlier this month, a panel of three judges ordered civil servants to obtain Premier Ford’s personal cellphone logs to locate government calls he has made using the device and make them public.
The court ruling, which sided with a separate order from the IPC, found Ford was using his personal phone for government business, records which should be made public.
Elsewhere, the premier’s chief of staff has used his Gmail account to work on government business. He also lost up to a year’s worth of government-related texts from his personal phone after he returned it to the manufacturer to be wiped.
A date for Amato’s judicial review to be heard has not yet been set.
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