Mayor John Tory faces integrity complaint over ties to Rogers

Thestar.com
July 27, 2022

Mayor John Tory is facing an integrity complaint over his connections to telecom giant Rogers, the Star has learned.

Civic activist Adam Chaleff has filed a formal application with the city integrity commissioner asking for an investigation into whether Tory’s involvement with the Rogers family trust put the mayor in a conflict of interest during a council vote last month on the city’s pandemic-era road closure program.

Chaleff, a left-leaning activist and communications professional who also organized a complaint against former mayor Rob Ford that saw him temporarily ousted from office in 2012, said he believed it was his “civic duty” to file the application against Tory.

“Any time that it appears that somebody hasn’t kept to the high level of integrity that we expect from our politicians, they should face the consequences for it, and this is a really important case of that,” he said.

He argued that Tory “cannot serve two masters, both Rogers and the city of Toronto and its people.”

The mayor has denied any wrongdoing.

In the run up to the June 15 vote, Toronto Blue Jays president and CEO Mark Shapiro had publicly asked the city to stop regular closures of Lake Shore Boulevard West as part of the ActiveTO program, arguing that shutting the street to car traffic made it harder for fans to get to ball games. Tory publicly defended Shapiro, and later voted with other councillors to approve a plan that didn’t include frequent Lake Shore closures.

Chaleff’s application to integrity commissioner Jonathan Batty, a copy of which was obtained by the Star, alleges Tory had an indirect financial interest in the issue because he sits on the advisory committee of the family trust that controls Rogers. Rogers owns the Jays.

The complaint claims the mayor’s actions “(give) rise to concerns” that he violated the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act. The provincial legislation says council members have to declare any financial interest they have in an item that’s before council, and not take part in any discussion or vote on the matter. The Act specifies a council member is considered to have indirect interest in an issue if they sit on a body that has a financial interest in it.

Tory’s office said Tuesday it had yet to receive a copy of the complaint, but stated the mayor wasn’t in a conflict.

“This vote was about a city program that the mayor introduced and championed throughout the pandemic and this was a very broad public issue involving all road users in the city,” Tory’s spokesperson Don Peat said in a statement.

“When the mayor does have any conflicts, he studiously has declared them and he did not have one in this case.”

Peat said that while the issue is before the integrity commissioner Tory’s office won’t be commenting further.

A spokesperson for Rogers declined to comment.

Tory has sat on the advisory committee of the Rogers control trust since 2010. The trust is made up mostly of Rogers family members and controls more than 90 per cent of voting shares in the communications company, enabling it to make major leadership and transaction decisions. Tory is paid $100,000 a year for his role on the committee. Last year his salary as mayor was about $197,000.

Chaleff’s application asks the commissioner to expedite the inquiry so the public can “understand whether a breach of the (Act) has occurred” before the Oct 24. municipal election at which Tory is seeking a third term.

It also says that if there are grounds to believe Tory violated the Act, the commissioner is obligated to refer the case to a judge. If a judge finds a council member has engaged in a conflict they can face penalties ranging from a reprimand, to a 90-day suspension of pay, to removal from office with no eligibility to serve again for up to seven years.

There’s no indication Tory would face the strictest penalties if he were found to have breached the Act in this instance.

Batty has confirmed to Chaleff that he’s reviewing his application. The commissioner didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

The city launched ActiveTO in 2020 to give residents a way to safely exercise outdoors during COVID-19. As part of the program, a 5.8-kilometre stretch of the eastbound lanes of Lake Shore West was regularly shut to car traffic on weekends and given over to residents on foot and on bicycles.

The events faced opposition as the city opened up this year, and on June 6, nine days before council was set to vote on how to proceed with ActiveTO, Shapiro penned an open letter to the mayor asking him to vote against closures on Lake Shore West. Shapiro wrote that the Jays’ return to the Rogers Centre was “an important part of Toronto’s pandemic recovery,” and ActiveTO “drastically impacts fans’ ability to access the ballpark.”

Residents who supported the program criticized Shapiro online, prompting Tory to come to his defence.

In comments cited in Chaleff’s application, the mayor told reporters on June 11 that he “found it so sad” that Shapiro had faced “abuse” for “simply setting out the views of his business and the fact that he has 30, 40, 50,000 people coming to a game.”

At the council meeting four days later Tory voted to have city staff look into other ways to improve pedestrian and cycling amenities on the waterfront, opting not to support regular closures on Lake Shore. The direction was approved by an overwhelming 22 to 1 vote.

Tory and the Rogers family have long-standing personal and professional connections, and the potential for his links to the company to pose a conflict has been an issue since he was first elected mayor in 2014.

Before taking office he vowed to recuse himself from any issues before council involving a “Rogers-controlled company,” regardless of whether the Act legally required it. This term alone he declared interests on at least 23 Rogers-related items at city hall.