Toronto council vote on Hydro secrecy befuddling, councillor says

Council voted to ask Toronto Hydro's board to consider a request for consultant costs, rather than compel the utility to reveal the costs.

Thestar.com
Feb. 5, 2018
By David Rider

Councillor Gord Perks thought it should be a "no-brainer" - use the city's power as sole owner of Toronto Hydro to find out how much taxpayers' money the utility is spending on Bay St. lawyers to fight a Toronto Star information request.

But Perks's colleagues did not vote at last week's Toronto council meeting on his motion to issue a "shareholder direction" that would have compelled Hydro to give them the information, confidentially or otherwise.

That's because Mayor John Tory and his allies backed a competing motion - to ask Hydro's board of directors to consider the request, with no compulsion to act and no timeline for response - after Tory's staff lobbied councillors, including on the council floor during a break in debate.

That motion, from Councillor Stephen Holyday who sits on Hydro's board of directors, passed 20-18 and made Perks's motion redundant. It would have failed on a tie had one more councillor voted against.

At the root of Perks's request are Star freedom of information requests to Toronto Hydro. The first, filed just over two years ago, asks for information on consultants hired by Hydro for behind-the-scenes work on a possible privatization of the century-old electricity distributor. Another seeks details on how much Hydro has spent on consultants - primarily lawyers from blue chip Bay St. firm Norton Rose Fulbright Canada - to fight to keep those details secret.

The Star revealed in October 2016 that two of Hydro's privatization consultants - Nick Kouvalis and Bob Richardson - were key figures in Tory's successful 2014 election campaign and are expected to be involved in his 2018 re-election bid. Sources told the Star in January 2016 that officials in Tory's office were involved in the backroom privatization discussions, although the mayor himself was not included in those talks.

Perks told council: "We're elected to know how the public company that we own in stewardship for the citizens of Toronto, and the electricity ratepayers in Toronto, spends ratepayers' money, and to make sure that the will of this council and the people of Toronto is being met. That's a duty."

In an interview, the Parkdale councillor and frequent Tory critic added: "Council very deliberately decided not to find out how Toronto Hydro is spending public money. They made a deliberate choice to not act in the interests of the people they represent. For some reason many council members including the mayor do not want the public to know why Toronto Hydro hired two of the mayor's key campaign staff.

"There are still procedural steps available but I'm concerned that we won't know the information for months or years."

His push to compel Hydro came after his "administrative inquiry" to Hydro executives via city manager Peter Wallace failed to get consultant spending.

Holyday said in an interview that he was trying to ensure that city council follow the proper procedure.

"I take no position on whether the information should be released," the Etobicoke representative said. "I'm more interested in governance - Toronto Hydro is a corporation and the shareholder agreement sets out its relationship with the city. If city council gives the shareholder (a) direction, it's kind of like council taking over the corporation and it defeats the point of governance."

Holyday, one of Tory's deputy mayors, acknowledged mayor's staff asked councillors to support his motion, but says it wasn't as his behest. Councillors told the Star that Vic Gupta, Tory's principal secretary, and Luke Robertson, director of council and stakeholder relations, asked them to back Holyday.

"I hope (council members) realized that good governance is the right way to do things at council," Holyday said. "I'm glad that (mayor's staff) told people to support it. It's an important decision. I didn't ask them to go shop for votes, no."

Tory's spokesman Don Peat responded to Star questions for the mayor with a statement: "As the mayor said last week, he supports Deputy Mayor Stephen Holyday's motion to refer the item back to the Hydro board. This was a reasonable and sensible option. We have boards at these corporations for a reason and the mayor believes it is up to board members to make a decision on this information.

Hydro spokesman Brian Buchan said: "Following the process set out in the shareholder direction, the request of council from last week will be considered by Toronto Hydro's board of directors and they will respond accordingly. I cannot speculate as to any decision they may make."

Councillor John Campbell, who sometimes votes with Tory, said Perks and Tory's staff each tried to persuade him to support their different positions.

He said he was persuaded that Holyday's motion followed the shareholder agreement. That agreement says a city representative's access to Hydro's books and records is limited to a specific purpose or project where the representative has been unable to obtain it through "shareholder reporting direction mechanisms" or inquiries to senior Hydro management or a request from city council to the Hydro board's chair.

The mayor's staff "just said Holyday's going to move that, can you go along with that, and I said sure," Campbell said in an interview, adding he knew there were "sensitivities" around the issue because of the past report about Tory's campaign officials later working as privatization consultants.

"In hindsight I wish I had asked a few more questions. I'm normally a proponent for openness and transparency. I guess it was a bit of a miss on my part for not asking a few more questions."

The office of Ontario's information and privacy commissioner, which is considering the Star's appeal of Hydro's denial of access to any records, says it expects to release a ruling on those appeals "shortly."