Brampton councillor scolded by integrity commissioner over conflict of interest
Gael Miles hosted a fundraiser for an organization that employs her husband.

TheStar.com
May 19, 2015
Stephen Spencer Davis

Brampton regional councillor Gael Miles will not face discipline for helping to raise money for an organization that employs her husband, an action the city’s integrity commissioner said represented a conflict of interest.

Integrity commissioner Robert Swayze found that Miles had breached the city's code of conduct for councillors, but she relied on a previous integrity commissioner's opinion that she was not in conflict in her role as co-host of a golf tournament that raised money for the agency her husband heads. And Swayze recommends that the code of conduct, which is being revamped, make it clearer that the code is a set of firm rules, not simply a reference guide.

According to Swayze's May 12 report, Miles co-hosted a golf tournament fundraiser for the Brampton Safe City Association in 2014. Miles also used social media to promote BSCA, where her husband, Larry Zacher, is executive director, according to the report.

Brampton resident John Hawes complained to Swayze in April, the report states. Hawes pointed out that Miles had previously declared a conflict of interest when matters related to BSCA came before council.

Miles admitted to Swayze that she hosted the golf tournament in 2014 and in previous years. In an interview with the Star, she maintained she had done nothing wrong.

“I don’t believe my involvement with raising funds for community safety programs has been a conflict of interest,” Miles said. “If I did, I wouldn’t have done it.”

Swayze focused on a section of Brampton’s code of conduct for councillors that says those who lend their support to charities and other organizations should “respect the need for transparency with respect to their involvement” and act in a way “that promotes public confidence.”

In helping an organization that employed her husband, Miles did neither, Swayze wrote.

“The golf tournament is raising funds for a corporation that employs her husband. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s a conflict,” he said in an interview.

Miles and Zacher have been involved with BSCA in different roles for several years. Miles was the organization’s executive director from 1981 to 1988, she said.

Zacher said roughly $1,000 to $2,000 of his total wages in 2014 would have come from money raised at the golf tournament.

“Approximately three per cent of my wage was covered by a combination of special events, the golf tournament being just one of those,” Zacher said.

Miles said she is unaware of how the organization handles its funds.

Swayze found that Miles had relied on a report from a previous integrity commissioner, ADR Chambers, which examined “her participation in the hiring of her husband by BSCA.”

Miles disclosed her work at the golf tournament to ADR, who concluded it was not a conflict of interest. Swayze wrote that he was satisfied that Miles would have seen her participation as permissible and that the councilor “cannot be found to have breached the code at that time.”

He also wrote that Miles had not violated the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act in promoting BSCA online, as the legislation “does not require that a councillor with a pecuniary conflict must forever be silent on the subject.”

In his report, Swayze notes that Brampton city council is currently revamping its code of conduct. With that underway, Swayze recommended that a section referring to the code as a “value-based reference” be removed and “replaced by a clear statement that the code is a set of rules to be followed by members of Council.”

Swayze’s report goes before council Wednesday.

Miles and Zacher suggested they were being unfairly targeted, but refused to elaborate.

“There’s a bit of focused targeting going on here,”Zacher said.

Asked to explain his comments, Zacher said,“Let’s leave it at that.Sour grapes, OK?”