$80M land buy / ~$8B windfall (combined w/ De Gasperis)
A company controlled by Rice Group CEO Michael Rice paid $80 million for roughly 700 acres (five parcels) of protected Greenbelt land in King Township on September 15, 2022 -- less than two months before the Ford government announced it would remove that land from the Greenbelt for development. The Auditor General found the decision would increase the value of land held by Rice (and another developer, De Gasperis) by almost $8 billion combined. Rice also fought a summons from the Auditor General to be interviewed as part of her Greenbelt investigation.
Rice Group retained former PC cabinet minister Frank Klees as a registered consultant lobbyist (Ontario Lobbyist Registry, Oct 8 2019 - Sept 11 2020) to lobby government on 'economic development opportunities' tied to the company's projects. Separately, Ontario's Integrity Commissioner documented that after buying the King Township land, Michael Rice personally met with a government chief of staff and provided materials arguing for its removal from the Greenbelt.