Brampton mayor Susan Fennell serves the Toronto Star with libel notice

Star editor Michael Cooke stands behind paper’s reporting on the city’s spending scandal, now being investigated by the Ontario Provincial Police.

Thestar.com
Sept. 18, 2014
By Eric Andrew-Gee

Embattled Brampton mayor Susan Fennell served the Toronto Star with a notice of libel Thursday over its coverage of the expenses scandal engulfing her office.

Fennell named the Star, its parent company Torstar, and four Star journalists in the notice, after threatening legal action last week.

Editor Michael Cooke stood behind the paper’s coverage Thursday. “The Star’s reporting on the misbehaviour of Mayor Fennell was put through a rigorous checking and editing process before publication,” he said. “We have nothing to apologize for or retreat from.”

The libel notice states that the Star published details of her spending “with malice and with a total disregard for the truth,” and demands that the paper make a public apology and retract a long list of statements about the mayor.

Fennell has also vowed to take legal action against certain unnamed Brampton councillors, the city’s integrity commissioner, and the auditing firm Deloitte Canada. The Star appears to be the only one Fennell has taken action against to date.

Integrity commissioner Robert Swayze, along with councillors contacted by the Star, said they had not received a libel notice from the mayor as of Thursday afternoon. Deloitte Canada, which conducted an audit of Fennell’s office that revealed hundreds of spending violations, did not respond to requests for comment.

The Star journalists San Grewal, Tim Alamenciak, Royson James, and Edward Keenan are named in the notice of libel for articles they have written about the explosive spending scandal that has shaken Brampton politics for the past year.

In August, a forensic audit by Deloitte showed that Fennell and her staff had breached city spending rules in 266 transactions over seven years, to the tune of $172,000.

The violations run the gamut from expensive airfare to a $1 iTunes download.

Councillors have also questioned the $1,400 monthly lease of Fennell’s Lincoln Navigator SUV - funded by taxpayers - which she uses alongside a $49,000-a-year limousine service.

Fennell was Canada’s highest-paid mayor in 2012, including her City of Brampton and Region of Peel salaries, but illegally lowered her salary in 2013, according to a legal opinion by municipal law expert John Mascarin.

On the heels of the Deloitte audit, the OPP has opened an investigation into Fennell’s spending, and the expenses of other council members, helmed by a member of the force’s anti-rackets branch.

Fennell was first elected mayor in 2000 and has been re-elected three times since; in 2010 she garnered just over half of the vote, more than 30 percentage points ahead of her nearest rival.