Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Tuesday, October 04, 2011

McCallion: a ‘real and apparent’ conflict of interest

The mayor was unrepentant and the premier was uncommitted after the judge behind the Mississauga inquiry found Hazel McCallion in a conflict of interest.

Mississauga’s beloved 90-year-old mayor acted in a “real and apparent conflict of interest” while pushing hard for a real estate deal that could have put millions of dollars in her son’s pocket, Judge Douglas Cunningham found.

But McCallion stuck to her guns Monday, as she did during the lengthy inquiry into the failed land deal, lauding Justice J. Douglas Cunningham’s report while dismissing his central finding.

“I did nothing wrong . . . That's his opinion that (my actions) were improper,” McCallion told reporters after release of the 386-page Mississauga judicial inquiry report.

“I did it on behalf of the good of the citizens of Mississauga to obtain our objective” — a luxury hotel and convention centre to help give her city a true downtown and cap an amazing 30-plus year run as mayor.

Later, she conceded: “If I had known what I know now ... I certainly wouldn’t have gotten involved in the process, there’s no question about it. …

On the streets of the metropolis McCallion built from farm fields, Bader Abuomar, 20, shrugged. “I don’t care,” he said, referring to the fact McCallion was in such an obvious conflict, wading waist-deep into son Peter’s attempt to jumpstart a $1.5 billion development, that she didn’t break a provincial law only because it doesn’t have the required teeth.

“She’s been doing a great job in the last couple of years. Mississauga is improving.”

Others, like John Henshaw, 70, sound ready to say farewell.

“I voted for her in several elections. Unfortunately, now I think her integrity’s sagged a little bit,” he said. “The voters’ trust in her is shaken.”

Cunningham’s report says McCallion didn’t break the narrow rules of the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act. But it says she violated the underlying principles and calls on the province to overhaul and expand legislation that currently doesn’t prevent municipal politicians from using their position to enrich themselves or family — so long as they declare a conflict at official proceedings.

On the campaign trail, Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty wouldn’t comment on the report. With just days to go until Thursday's election, McGuinty said he hadn't had time to read its 386 pages.

Asked if she would step down, McCallion said no. “I complied with the (Municipal) Conflict of Interest Act as the commissioner has confirmed in his statement this morning,” she said, adding those were the regulations at the time and any new regulations that come forward will then have to be complied with.

She stuck to her defence that she was acting in the city’s interests, despite Cunningham’s finding that she should have refrained from any involvement in her son’s business. “That’s my position — as mayor, in order to accomplish what we are able to accomplish in getting a convention centre and prime hotel in the city core, that I thought as mayor I should get involved.”

The report will now go to Mississauga council for consideration.

McCallion promoted the interests of World Class Developments, in which her son Peter was a principal, in pushing for a land deal aimed at bringing a $1.5 billion hotel and convention centre development to downtown Mississauga, and continued to do so to a “limited extent” after the deal fell apart and the partners in WCD negotiated a $4 million settlement from the land’s owner, Cunningham wrote.

The mayor, in her 12th term and a political icon, knew at least that her son was a real estate agent on the deal and should have known that he held an ownership stake in the project — as became apparent later, he added.

“Given the mayor’s knowledge of her son’s pecuniary interest, I find that her actions in promoting WCD amounted to a conflict of interest, both real and apparent,” Cunningham wrote.

“It is no answer for the mayor to say that her actions were done for the benefit of the City of Mississauga when her son stood to make millions of dollars if the deal was concluded.”

McCallion should have stopped having anything to deal with the deal once she knew her son stood to make money from it, he said.

Commission counsel Will McDowell clarified Cunningham’s point in a news conference after the report was released, saying that the act requires only that “there’s no attempt to influence discussion inside or outside of council with respect to council’s decision making” — a rule McCallion had observed.

However, he said, under common law, “there’s a long line of authority that says you can’t use your office to promote a private purpose, and what the commissioner has found is that those principles apply and that the mayor is in breach of those principles.”

Ward 11 Councillor George Carlson said the report was a vindication for councillors who bucked the mayor to vote for the inquiry.

“It’s a bit of strong medicine but it’s for the long-term good of the city,” he told reporters. The $7 million cost was an expensive way to remedy problems, but council had limited tools, he said.

“There’s almost a reverence for the mayor and her achievements and her career ... But there is also a point, whether we see it or not, a best-before date on all of our foreheads,” he said of McCallion and how residents will view the report.

“She has run (the city) as a family business and as a small-town mayor at heart, and the kinds of things you could do in 1961 are not the kinds of things you can do now.”

Of McCallion’s response to the report, ex-councillor Carolyn Parrish — who lost her municipal seat in part because she championed the inquiry — said she didn’t think “any outside body can do anything to (McCallion’s) reputation built over 32 years. She didn’t admit any guilt, she spun it around in her favour as she always does, but I don’t think any mayor in this city will be given this leeway again.”

Cunningham had harsh words for others involved in the story.

Peter McCallion misled the inquiry, Cunningham found, when he testified that he learned only after the deal fell apart that he was not simply a real estate agent but had a 15 per cent stake in World Class Developments, which tried to purchase the land from a subsidiary of pension giant Ontario Municipal Employers Retirement System and Alberta Investment Management Corp.

“Although Mr. McCallion held himself out simply as a real estate agent through most of the period 2005-2009, I have found, based on the evidence present at the inquiry, that he was, and knew that he was, a principal of WCD,” the judge wrote.

Cunningham also took aim at former city manager David O’Brien, saying he put himself in an “impossible situation” through a web of allegiances — to the city, to his good friend the mayor and family holding company he oversaw, to the Enersource city utility he was taking the reins of, and other players in the real estate drama.

Cunningham wants the province to add a preamble to the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act setting out “broad overarching principles” to keep civic officials and those who have dealings with them from getting into such murky waters.

It would say members “are expected to perform their duties of office and arrange their private affairs in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity of each member, maintains the assembly’s dignity and justifies the respect in which society holds the assembly and its members.”

While the current act only requires civic officials to formally declare at council meetings when they have a financial interest in a matter, Cunningham would have the act police all their activities, ensuring they “act with integrity and impartiality that will bear the closest scrutiny.”

Other recommendations for legislative changes include a statement that family members of office holders also be covered, and that “interest” be broadened beyond financial considerations.

As to the matter of a veto mysteriously placed in an agreement between Mississauga, the 90 per cent owner of Enersource, that gave its partner, a subsidiary of OMERS, a veto, Cunningham placed the blame solely on O’Brien, despite McCallion’s attempts to say an outside lawyer hired by the city was at fault.

“City manager David O’Brien failed to discharge his duty to communicate a significant change in the terms of the city’s transaction with Borealis Energy Corp. to Mayor McCallion and members of city council,” he wrote.

“I conclude that, although some limited changes to the city’s practices need to be implemented, it is not necessary to make extensive recommendations in relation to the good governance of Mississauga.”

Origin
Source: Toronto Star 

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