City of Brampton refuses to reveal documents involving lawyer’s potential conflict

The Star seeks documents to reveal whether a lawyer probing possible staff misconduct has a conflict of interest in the case. Councillor says city has ‘gone into total lockdown.’

Thestar.com
April 1, 2015
By San Grewal


The City of Brampton has refused to provide documents sought by the Toronto Star under a freedom of information request regarding a lawyer hired to investigate alleged misconduct by Brampton senior staff.

A letter denying access, sent to the Star on Friday, cites “solicitor-client privilege” as the city’s reason for refusing to hand over documents that might show whether lawyer George Rust-D’Eye is in a conflict of interest because of his former firm’s links to the project he’s investigating.

On Monday, the provincial Information and Privacy Commissioner informed the Star that an appeal of the Brampton decision is now being dealt with.

Rust-D’Eye was hand-picked by Brampton’s then-chief administrative officer, John Corbett, to look into how staff handled the controversial bidding process for a $500-million downtown redevelopment deal and whether staff misled council. Rust-D’Eye’s report is three months overdue and over-budget.

Meanwhile, Corbett’s employment with the city was terminated last week. He is one of five key senior staff named in documents that are part of a $28.5-million lawsuit against the city launched by a developer who alleges he was unfairly disqualified from the bidding process and that senior staff and ex-mayor Susan Fennell were biased in favour of the company that won the job, Dominus Construction.

(The city denies all allegations in the lawsuit, and Dominus has stated that it followed all the rules of the bidding process.)

City council ordered the city to do its own probe of the allegations and Corbett picked Rust-D’Eye, who specializes in municipal law, for the job in September.

The Star later learned his former legal firm had been involved in consultations with the city on the project’s early stages.

Asked about that by the Star in January, Rust-D’Eye confirmed that his firm at the time, WeirFoulds, did work on the project, but said: “I cannot remember if I was personally involved.”

In February, the Star requested from city staff the documents that WeirFoulds worked on related to the project and for invoices of any work Rust-D’Eye had been hired to do for the city since 2007.

When that request was refused, the Star filed a freedom of information request. When the 30-day FOI deadline neared in early March, the city requested a 30-day extension. The Star appealed that request to Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, which ordered Brampton to make a decision by last Friday, March 27.

Corbett told the Star via email two weeks ago that, Rust-D’Eye “was not personally or in any way involved in the SWQ (southwest quadrant) project prior to being hired as interim auditor general in September 2014.” He did not explain how he confirmed this.

After failing to set any budget for the job last fall, Corbett originally told council that Rust-D’Eye’s work would cost $50,000 to $60,000.

However, his billings have ballooned to $179,000. Corbett told the Star three weeks ago that the amount he had verbally given council was only for a preliminary report, which Rust-D’Eye produced in October, outlining what he was investigating just three weeks after he was hired.

Corbett confirmed to the Star that right after Rust-D’Eye was hired, a purchase order to cover his fees was made out for $167,000, but council was not informed of this amount.

Councillor John Sprovieri asked Rust-D’Eye during a public meeting in early March whether he was in a conflict. The question was quickly shut down by city staff, who instructed Rust-D’Eye not to respond in public; the matter was then dealt with by council in camera.

Sprovieri is concerned about the legitimacy of the investigation being done by Rust-D’Eye, who, until he left in 2013, was a partner with WeirFoulds and had co-chaired the firm’s municipal law and planning group.

WeirFoulds has not commented on the issue, nor has Rust-D’Eye made any public comments on it since January.

“I can only say, if the city has nothing to hide they would freely provide the documentation,” Sprovieri said Friday. “It sounds to me like they’ve gone into total lockdown. I cannot understand why staff won’t answer if Mr. Rust-D’Eye did previous work for the city and how much money he was paid for any work he might have done.”