Provincial committee chair with links to Ford’s former chief of staff resigns

Thestar.com
July 11, 2019
Kristin Rushowy

Another provincial appointee with ties to Premier Doug Ford’s controversial former chief of staff has resigned.

Lawyer Andrew Suboch “has advised the Justice of the Peace Appointments Advisory Committee that he is resigning effective immediately,” Laryssa Waler Hetmanczuk, Ford’s executive director of communications, said Wednesday.

“The attorney general has spoken to the chief justice and advised that he intends to designated a judicial member of the advisory committee as the interim chair, who will oversee this year’s justice of the peace recruitment and appointment process,” she also said in a statement.

Suboch did not immediately provide a comment to the Star.

Suboch is the latest casualty in a cronyism scandal involving Dean French that continues to rock the Ford government -- and one that forced French out of his role as the premier’s top adviser in June.

The Globe and Mail first revealed Suboch’s longtime friendship with French last month, also reporting that their sons were lacrosse teammates.

The provincial government had been reviewing Suboch’s appointment, and has also said it would look at other “pending” appointments given the outcry over the appointments of French family and friends -- which included a buddy of his son and his wife’s cousin, whose international postings and high-paying positions were revoked after the connection was revealed.

And just last week, after the Star revealed that Peter Fenwick was given the position of heading strategic transformation despite being a longtime insurance customer of French’s he was let go and his department dissolved.

Premier Doug Ford told reporters earlier this week, while in Alberta attending the Calgary stampede before heading to Saskatoon for the annual summer premiers meeting, that he acted “immediately” in the face of the scandal. Instead, Ford accused the media of making the scandal a bigger deal than it actually was.

“Do you really think when I walk down the street in Alberta, people worry about Dean French?” Ford said. “Let’s be clear -- Dean French is no longer there, we are moving forward.”