The mysterious development consultant who Ontario’s integrity commissioner identified only as “Mr. X” in a scathing report about the removal of land from the Greenbelt has been identified to CBC News as former Clarington, Ont., mayor John Mutton.
In a report released on Wednesday, Integrity Commissioner J. David Wake said Mr. X was one of two consultants hired by landowner Peter Tanenbaum to work on getting about 34 hectares of land on Nash Road in that community, approximately 83 kilometres east of Toronto, removed from the Greenbelt and rezoned to permit development.
Wake found that Mr. X may have engaged in unregistered lobbying and other potential lobbying violations while working that work.
Nico Fidani-Diker, principal at the lobbying firm OnPoint Strategy Group, confirmed to CBC News that he worked with Mutton as a consultant on the Nash Road project.
“I had no interactions with Mr. Mutton other than this one file,” Fidani-Diker said.
“I am unaware of the details of Mr. Mutton’s contract with Mr.Tanenbaum.”
Two other sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, who are close to the province’s Progressive Conservative government, identified Mutton as Mr. X on Friday.
CBC News was unable to reach Mutton for comment Friday.
However, The Toronto Star, which was first to identify Mutton as Mr. X, reported that Mutton said he had worked for Tanenbaum for “over 17 years,” but stressed that it wasn’t as a lobbyist.
“I’m not a lobbyist. I have a development services company where we provide planning, engineering, and everything,” the Star quoted him as saying.
“I’ve never been contracted to do any type of lobbying to get any lands out of the Greenbelt.”
Wake found Mr. X interacted with senior political staffers in the office of Housing Minister Steve Clark, arranged golf with them that apparently didn’t happen and a paid lunch that did, and offered them tickets to a Toronto Raptors basketball game.
He was also promised a million-dollar payout if he succeeded in influencing governments to allow housing to be built on his client’s land.
Wake, who also serves as Ontario’s lobbyist registrar, said Mr. X didn’t register with the Ontario Lobbyists Registry with respect to the Greenbelt, which raises questions about possible non-compliance with the Lobbyists Registration Act.
Section 3.2 of the act “prohibits lobbying when payment is contingent on the degree of success in lobbying,” Wake wrote. “I will deal with the possible non-compliance separately, in my capacity as Ontario’s Lobbyist Registrar, outside of this report and inquiry.”
Mutton served as mayor of Clarington, a municipality with a 2021 population of about 101,000, from 1997 to 2006, according to his LinkedIn profile. The profile says he has been president and CEO of the development firm Municipal Solutions since 2006.