Mayor Rob Ford ponders losing his job in conflict of interest case

Famously combative Mayor Rob Ford sounds resigned to the possibility he might be kicked out of office over a conflict-of-interest allegation a lawyer says is consistent with past actions “as if the rules do not apply to him.”

Appearing on Newstalk 1010 on Tuesday, Ford noted he will be grilled on the witness stand next Wednesday by renowned lawyer Clayton Ruby.

A lawsuit accuses Ford of breaking provincial law in February by speaking and voting on whether he should have to pay back $3,150 in donations to his football foundation from lobbyists and a corporation.

“It really bothers me,” Ford said of the suit brought by Toronto resident Paul Magder. He then lauded his foundation’s work giving equipment to schools to start football programs.

Ruby is “going to cross-examine me and they want me out of office, and if I lose the court case I guess I lose my job and, uh, I don’t know, it really bothers me, it really bothers me, so just hope for the best,” he said.

Ford agreed with host Jim Richards that the conflict suit is a backdoor attempt to force him from office.

“If you don’t like what I’m doing then there’s an election Oct 27, 2014, it’s two years away, then have your say,” the mayor said. “But I don’t think it’s right what’s going on.”

If Ford took part in a debate or vote in which he had a conflict of interest, the province’s Municipal Conflict of Interest Act decrees the judge “shall” force him out of office and “may” bar him from rejoining council for up to seven years.

If guilty, Ford could keep his job only if Justice Charles Hackland found he made an “error of judgment or inadvertence” or that the sum involved was “insignificant.”

The mayor talked to the radio station as reporters got court office access to Magder’s “factum” that argues Ford knowingly broke the rules as part of a pattern of defiance, so Hackland must decree the mayor’s seat “vacant.”

Council could then call a mayoral byelection or appoint somebody to replace him for the remainder of his term.

In 2010, city integrity commissioner Janet Leiper recommended council sanction Ford for using council letterhead and city resources to solicit donations for the foundation, and pay back donations from lobbyists and a business representative with whom Ford had met.

Council agreed. Ford voted against the recommendation, although then-speaker Sandra Bussin advised he appeared to be in a conflict.

Ford ignored Leiper’s six subsequent requests for proof he had repaid the $3,150. When the matter came back to council in February, Ford made an impassioned speech about the work of his foundation and said: “To ask for me to pay it out of my own pocket, personally — there’s just no sense to this ... The money’s been spent on football equipment.”

Ruby argues Ford admitted a “pecuniary” interest when he said the cash would come out of his pocket.

As for any argument the millionaire Ford makes about the sum being “insignificant,” Ruby wrote: “It takes a long time and a good deal of hard work for an ordinary Canadian to earn $3,150.00 … the respondent focused on the perceived unfairness of forcing him to reimburse such a sum out of his ‘own pocket.’ It certainly mattered to him.”

Rather than being inadvertent or a slip, Ford’s February vote was part of a pattern that saw him warned twice about using council letterhead to solicit donations before he was formally investigated in 2010, and ignore Bussin’s warning at the resulting vote, Ruby argues.

“Mayor Ford has a history on other issues of complying with the Act and a history on this particular issue of flouting the Act,” and also of displaying an “attitude that the rules do not apply to him,” the factum states.

The only conclusion, Ruby argues, is that Ford deliberately flouted the act because he was upset by what he considered an unfair burden, and correctly concluded he could turn councillors around by “speaking from the heart.”

Ford’s defence, according to his lawyer’s factum viewed by the Star on Monday, will be that the Conflict of Interest Act doesn’t apply because Ford’s actions were governed by a council Code of Conduct that falls under another provincial law, the City of Toronto Act.

Alan Lenczner also argues that the donations didn’t affect Ford’s “pecuniary interest” because they went to his football foundation, not his own pocket.

If Ford did breach the Act, Lenczner argues, the judge should deem it an “error of judgment or inadvertence,” because Ford believed the act only came into play if the vote had a financial impact for the city, and the sum involved insignificant.

Original Article
Source: the star
Author: David Rider