Municipal staff in York Region told to sign nondisclosure agreements over Premier Doug Ford’s subway plans

Infrastructure Ontario says NDAs are ‘standard procedure’ for big projects. A longtime councillor calls them ‘against the very essence of municipal government.’

thestar.com
Donovan Vincent
Feb. 22, 2022

When the province of Ontario shared information with senior staff in York Region about controversial plans to build transit-oriented communities in Richmond Hill and Markham, those employees had to sign nondisclosure agreements.

And it wasn’t until months later that the people those staffers answer to, that politicians at the local and regional government level, would learn of those details, including the province’s plans to more than double the population surrounding those station stops, and significantly reduce employment targets.

According to a letter from Paul Freeman, chief planner for York Region, the province provided information to senior staff with York Region and its local municipalities Markham, Richmond Hill and Vaughan on July 28 and Aug. 5 last year regarding proposals for two future transit hubs in the area.

The province wants to build mixed-use transit hubs, complete with condos, commercial units, community centres, parks, libraries and more that would centre on future subway stops in Markham (Bridge Station) and Richmond Hill (High Tech).

Premier Doug Ford’s government has plans to more than double the population in the Bridge and High Tech communities and significantly reduce the number of jobs, plans that diverge considerably from those of the local municipalities of Richmond Hill and Markham -- which has some local politicians and residents very upset.

Under the nondisclosure agreement, details about the province’s goals were delivered to senior municipal staff members in order to begin technical reviews and provide comments back to the province, Freeman’s letter goes on to say.

“There are concerns around confidentiality of the submissions, limiting staff’s ability to notify and brief municipal councils on planned developments,” reads Freeman’s note, written to an executive committee co-chaired by Ontario’s deputy transport minister and the CAO for York Region and which oversees issues pertaining to the Yonge North Subway Extension.

It wasn’t until the province held open houses months later in December that those details about the proposals and the calls for increased densities were revealed to local councils and the public.

“With regard to the signing of NDAs, this is a standard practice for large infrastructure projects,” Infrastructure Ontario spokesperson Ian McConachie said in a statement to the Star.

But Jack Heath, a regional councillor in Markham who has been in local and later regional government in York since 1997, says this is the first he’s ever heard of municipal staff signing agreements preventing them from discussing important business with their councillors.

“It’s an extremely difficult situation. In my view, staff should never have been asked to sign such a declaration, because staff are responsible to elected officials,” Heath said in an interview.

“That really tore them (staff) in two directions. The request in my view was against the very essence of municipal government and how it’s to operate. They (the province) could have, if they wanted, gone to the city of Markham council and asked for us to go in-camera and left it as an in-camera matter. We have done that in the past,” Heath said.

“To say you’re an employee of the city of Markham, but not allowed to talk to the councillors ... I found it very upsetting and I really wish it hadn’t happened. I don’t point the finger at staff,” he said.

“They (the province) must have thought the councillors would leak the information,” Heath surmises.

The city of Toronto is currently involved in discussions with the province regarding several transit-oriented communities the latter wants to build, including stops on the proposed Ontario Line that would run through downtown Toronto and up to the Ontario Science Centre near Eglinton Avenue and Don Mills Road.

The Star asked the city of Toronto whether any city staff have had to sign NDAs pertaining to large infrastructure projects.

In an email, the city said that “occasionally” NDAs have been used regarding the sharing of confidential third party commercial information.

But the spokesperson went on to say that city representatives who have signed NDAs would “not regard the NDA as precluding the disclosure of information, in confidence if necessary, to council if requested or required for its decision making.”