‘I’m tired, really tired’: The staffer’s side, World Cup vote conflict and other key take-aways from the John Tory ruling

Thestar.com
Oct. 10, 2023

Nearly eight months after John Tory abruptly resigned as mayor, on Thursday Toronto’s integrity commissioner published an investigation into the conduct that pushed him from office.

The 122-page report provides the most detailed account yet of how Tory navigated his relationship with a member of his staff and his official duties, and concluded he broke the rules.

Here are the most important findings:

Integrity commissioner Jonathan Batty concluded the former mayor violated two provisions of Council’s Code of Conduct that require members to adhere to proper human resource policies, and that prohibit improper use of members’ influence.

Tory had a consensual on-and-off relationship with the staffer, who the report calls “Ms. A,” between summer 2020 and early 2023. City policy doesn’t forbid romantic relationships between elected officials and employees, but Tory failed to report it to the integrity commissioner, document measures being taken to address any subsequent problems in the workplace, or respect established reporting relationships in the mayor’s office.

The commissioner found Tory told his then chief of staff, Luke Robertson, about the relationship without the woman’s knowledge, and the only direction she received about how to handle the relationship at work was an August 2020 email that Tory sent after his wife confronted him. In it, Tory attempted to end things and told the staffer they “had to find ways to limit their personal contact in the workplace.”

“Mr. Tory’s approach to this situation put his private interests first,” Batty concluded. “Workplace and personal issues were not being separated as they should have been.”

Batty also found Tory should have recused himself from two 2022 votes that advanced plans for Toronto to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

The previous year, Ms. A had left the mayor’s office and taken a job at the Scarborough Health Foundation Network. But in an unusual arrangement, she was seconded one day at week to work on Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment’s participation in the World Cup bid.

Tory voted in April to proceed with the bid, and in July to sign an exclusive deal with MLSE to help host. With the MLSE’s participation in the games secured, the company gave Ms. A a full-time position.

In both cases the mayor was just one vote in an overwhelming majority that advanced the World Cup, and he said he supported the event because he believed it would benefit the city.

But Batty concluded that his votes were “not consistent” with the requirement “to avoid real and apparent conflicts of interest and the improper use of their office for the private gain of someone close to them.”

Despite the commissioner reporting that one MLSE executive texted a colleague that Tory appeared to be “putting the lean on” the organization while it was considering hiring the staffer, Batty found Tory didn’t inappropriately use his influence to get her a job outside city hall, or violate other provisions of the code, including sexual harassment policies.

Staffer’s first public comments
The Star hasn’t named the staffer, and she has declined reporters’ requests for comment. But Batty’s report includes testimony she provided for his investigation, which are her first public comments about her relationship with the mayor.

Three weeks after Tory stepped down, she told the commissioner it had been “one of the worst months of my life.” She said the media had “embellished” Tory’s resignation statement and what had been reported didn’t align with “how I would describe our relationship.”

“And trying to explain to people that I love how much somebody meant to me when there’s speculation in the media that’s inaccurate has been a lot. I’m tired, really tired,” she is quoted as saying.

The quotes don’t specify what she believed was inaccurate.

Ms. A also told the commissioner she didn’t feel pressured when Tory first expressed romantic affection for her in the summer of 2020, and she reciprocated it. She said his advance was “not unwelcome” and “I never felt I was in jeopardy, or things weren’t okay.”

Tory regrets running for re-election
The report sheds light on a question that has confounded political observers and Torontonians for months: why did Tory run in the October 2022 election if he knew his relationship posed a major political liability?

The former mayor has never taken questions about the relationship or his resignation. But he told the commissioner that while the potential scandal was always “looming,” he believed the pandemic had left him with unfinished business at city hall, and he was best placed to help the city recover.

He said that with “the benefit of hindsight,” running again was the wrong decision.

“And, you know, as I’m sitting here today, as I’m answering that question you’re asking, if I had life to live over again, I wouldn’t have run again, notwithstanding how well I did in the election,” he said.

Other staffers “traumatized”
The report states that other members of the mayor’s office were “traumatized” by Tory’s decision to step down, because it “cast a pall over them all, especially some female staff members who were suspected of being the unnamed person he had a relationship with.”

Robertson said he was concerned for other employees as soon as Tory informed him about the relationship, in the fall of 2020. The former chief of staff told the commissioner that if the relationship became public there were about 20 people “whose jobs were at stake here for nothing that they’ve done,” and his primary concern was “innocent people were about to be, or potentially, wrapped up in something like this.”