Mr. Hamilton, a partner in Toronto at Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP, has been involved in more than a dozen high-profile legal battles since he was first hired to work for the Conservative Party in 2003.
Mr. Hamilton is currently arguing on the party’s behalf that the Council of Canadians’ lawsuit is not based on fact; is keeping a very close eye on Elections Canada’s politically-charged investigation into the robocalls during the last federal election campaign; and is involved in a lawsuit against him by a former Conservative MP.
Former Conservative Cabinet staffer Yaroslav Baran, now a principal at Earnscliffe Strategy Group, said from his brief meetings with the Toronto lawyer he got the impression that Mr. Hamilton was “smart, conscientious, courteous. An all-around good and nice fellow.”
Tim Powers, a former Conservative Cabinet staffer and current vice-president of Summa Strategies, said Mr. Hamilton is “capable,” “professional,” “affable” and is “well-regarded by the party, by senior leadership.”
Mr. Hamilton has been the go-to source of legal counsel and advice for the Conservative Fund Canada, the Conservative Party of Canada, its caucus, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) for almost a decade.
On June 25, The Hill Times witnessed Mr. Hamilton at work on Conservative Party business during the preliminary hearing for the Council of Canadians lawsuit. Following the revelation that vote suppression could have been used to win seven ridings, the Council of Canadians is asking the Federal Court to overturn the election results in Don Valley East, Ont., Elmwood-Transcona, Man., Nipissing-Timiskaming, Ont., Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, Sask., Vancouver Island North, B.C., Winnipeg South Centre, Man., and Yukon.
Mr. Hamilton argued the case should be thrown out of court because the Council of Canadians’ applications were filed too late and that allowing them to be heard would set a bad precedent that could lead to an election challenge “free-for-all.” As well, Mr. Hamilton said the notices of applications, the affidavits upon which the lawsuit is based, are problematic even at face value, as they use words such as “suggests,” “estimates,” “tended,” and he said mention media reports.
“These can’t be seen as anything but opinion,” said Mr. Hamilton, adding that Parliamentarians have no chance of responding to the “fatally flawed” submissions.
In the grand yet muffled atmosphere of the high-ceilinged room, Mr. Hamilton addressed the courtroom at a relatively slow, deliberate pace, often pausing between points. As a trained and well-practised lawyer, Mr. Hamilton has a perceived proclivity for stating his arguments definitively, for delivering them with a hint of blunt steel, and for keeping a sharp eye on technicalities and procedure throughout the trial. A decision is still pending on whether the Council of Canadians case will proceed.
Following the near day-long hearing, Mr. Hamilton was friendly and courteous when The Hill Times approached him. At the base of the steps leading up to the Supreme Court, Mr. Hamilton said due to solicitor-client privilege, there was not much that he could say about his work for the federal Conservative Party. He offered, however, that Mr. Harper is doing “great things,” and that it’s both a “privilege” and an “honour” to serve the party.
After graduating with a bachelor degree from the University of Toronto in 1992, Mr. Hamilton attended the Osgoode Hall Law School at York University in Toronto, from which he graduated in 1995. In 1997, he was called to the Ontario bar.
While in university, Mr. Hamilton was active with the Progressive Conservatives on campus. In 1993, Mr. Hamilton worked on the successful Progressive Conservative leadership campaign of former prime minister Kim Campbell. Later that year, when an election was called, he worked on Ms. Campbell’s unsuccessful re-election campaign. The Progressive Conservatives were reduced to two seats in the Commons.
Mr. Hamilton started at Cassels Brock & Blackwell as an articling student in 1996, and became partner in January 2003. In his first job as partner, he successfully fended off a lawsuit attempting to prevent the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance parties from merging.
David Orchard, a former PC leadership candidate who had backed eventual PC leadership winner Peter MacKay (Central Nova, N.S.) on the condition that he would not allow a merger to happen, later brought the case forward to the Federal Court when Mr. MacKay reneged on his promise. Mr. Hamilton was among the lawyers who successfully fought to dismiss the lawsuit, leading the way for the two parties to merge in December 2003.
But in 2004, Ethel Ahenakew, Mr. Orchard, and other applicants launched an appeal, and Mr. Hamilton was once again retained to defend the merger. That case set a precedent to recognize that registered political parties legally exist separate from individual members and are entitled to control their own internal affairs. Not long after, former Mulroney Cabinet minister, Sinclair Stevens sought to dissolve the new Conservative Party and resurrect the PCs, which Mr. Hamilton also successfully defended against.
After fighting to keep the party intact, in 2004, Mr. Hamilton served as the lead counsel for the Conservative Party, which had intervener status, during the Gomery Commission investigating the Liberal sponsorship scandal.
In September 2006, under the first-ever Conservative Party minority government, Mr. Hamilton was appointed, on the recommendation of then Transport minister Lawrence Cannon, to the board of directors of the Federal Bridge Corporation. In the spring of 2007, Mr. Hamilton was appointed as the corporation’s chair, receiving an annual retainer of between $6,400 and $7,500, along with a remuneration per diem between $200 and $300. Mr. Hamilton served in this capacity until August 2008.
One of the most high-profile cases Mr. Hamilton worked on was the “in-out” scandal from May 2007 until the fall of 2011. Elections Canada took the Conservative Party to court over allegations the party exceeded campaign expenses during the 2006 federal election. Charges against the party, including against Conservative Senators Irving Gerstein and Doug Finley, of willfully exceeding the limit by $1.2-million and breaching the Canada Elections Act were dropped after the Senators and two other Conservative staffers pleaded guilty to lesser charges of failing to report all expenses incurred during the campaign. Sen. Gerstein and Sen. Finley and staffers Mike Donison and Susan Kehoe paid a $52,000 fine and the Conservative Party reimbursed Elections Canada $230,198 for expense reimbursements the party was not entitled to.
In 2009, Mr. Hamilton was called in when Mr. Harper, a number of Cabinet ministers, Parliamentary secretaries and their ministerial staff faced allegations from former Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay that they had contravened both the Conflict of Interest Act and the Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons in the advertising and communications strategy developed around the government’s promotion of the Economic Action Plan.
Ms. Hall Findlay argued that the Conservative Party had equated itself with the Government of Canada by using colours and images that had a “look and feel” of Conservative Party electoral advertising in promoting the Economic Action Plan, as described by the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson’s subsequent January 2010 report. Ms. Dawson ultimately discontinued the examination after finding that the rules of the code had not been contravened.
Later in the year, Mr. Hamilton’s legal expertise was retained when lobbyists Michael McSweeney and Will Stewart faced allegations that they had breached the Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct by participating in the organization, and ticket sales, of a September 2009 fundraising dinner for then Natural Resources minister Lisa Raitt (Halton, Ont.).
In 2010, the Conservative Party became embroiled in internal scandal when Helena Guergis, the former MP for Simcoe-Grey, Ont., was forced to resign from her Cabinet position as minister of state for the Status of Women and was kicked out of the Conservative caucus. It was Mr. Hamilton who allegedly communicated private investigator Derrick Snowdy’s allegations against Ms. Guergis to the PMO and to Ms. Guergis herself.
At present, Mr. Hamilton is one of a number of people—including Mr. Harper, Mr. Snowdy, Ms. Raitt, former PMO chief of staff Guy Giorno and PMO principal secretary Ray Novak, among others—currently facing a lawsuit by Ms. Guergis, claiming negligence and infliction of mental suffering, defamation, and conspiracy, among other claims.
During the 2011 election campaign, the University of Guelph became a focus of much media attention after Conservative Party worker Michael Sona, who worked for Guelph Conservative candidate Marty Burke, attempted to grab a special ballot box which he believed should not have counted as a valid polling station. Mr. Hamilton later sent a letter to the Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand calling for the votes to be declared null and void.
In September 2011, it was Mr. Hamilton who again sent a letter to the chief electoral officer on behalf of the Conservative Party asking Elections Canada to investigate whether the NDP broke political financing laws by accepting union contribution during a spring 2011 policy convention.
But it is since February 2011 that Mr. Hamilton’s name has likely become best known. On Feb. 23, 2011, The Ottawa Citizen’s Glen McGregor and Postmedia’s Stephen Maher broke the explosive and politically-charged robocalls story which led to the current Elections Canada investigation into fraudulent phone calls made to voters in the last election. Mr. McGregor and Mr. Maher have noted that court filings show that Elections Canada investigator Al Mathews has been working with Mr. Hamilton in pursuing his investigation, and Mr. Hamilton has been noted as having arranged and sat in on interviews between Conservative Party workers and Mr. Mathews.
In response to a question from The Hill Times about this investigation and Mr. Hamilton’s role in it, Conservative Party communications director Mr. DeLorey said the party is not conducting an internal investigation into Guelph campaign activities and said Mr. Hamilton is not conducting this or any similar investigation.
Meanwhile, Mr. Hamilton’s legal work also focuses on energy matters, contract and business tort litigation, corporate governance and dispute resolution, but his name is clearly nestled in the nutgraphs of many of the biggest political controversies that have unfolded over the past decade.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Laura Ryckewaert
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