By Pepper Parr
April 7th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
He “overlooked” an email linked to the $8.28-billion Greenbelt scandal that was transmitted on private server accounts instead of government servers.
Marit Stiles, Leader of the NDP opposition in the Legislature, filed the complaint with the Integrity Commissioner. She will not be pleased but probably not surprised.
Ontario’s ethics watchdog has cleared Premier Doug Ford’s chief of staff of wrongdoing after the discovery of an “overlooked” email brought to his attention in a complaint from NDP Leader Marit Stiles to Integrity Commissioner J. David Wake
The RCMP are not as likely to take the explanation Patrick Sackville gave the Integrity Commissioner at the same face value should they have a reason to call him in for a conversation.
In response to the complaint J. David Wake said he has “accepted” Patrick Sackville’s explanation of how his Oct. 17, 2022 email exchange was missed.
“I have concluded that the Oct. 17 email sent from Mr. Amato to Mr. Sackville’s personal email in the circumstances I have outlined does not support a finding that Patrick Sackville knew about the specific removal criteria for lands from the Greenbelt or the properties selected for removal until he was briefed with others, as he testified, on Oct. 27,” Wake wrote earlier this week.
The Integrity Commissioner said “it is unfortunate that this email was not retrieved in accordance with the request for documents I made to Mr. Sackville … I have accepted his explanation as to how it was overlooked.”
Sackville, Ford’s chief of staff, told Wake it “was an oversight on my part” that the missive fell through the cracks because it was to his personal account rather than his government email.
Sackville said: When asked for all documents relevant to the issues you are investigating, I conducted a diligent search of my records that would be responsive to your request. However, I did not locate the email from Mr. Amato in making that search,” said Sackville.
Patrick Sackville was highly recommended when he was made the Premier’s Chief of Staff. Described as one of the smartest people around. A question that might be asked is: How many emails did he receive on his private server – and where did David Amato get the Sackville personal email address?
“In conducting some due diligence related to freedom of information requests, I later became aware of this email and, consistent with my obligations, provided it to you expeditiously,” he said, referring to the message being found last December.
“I do not conduct government business on my personal email, and would not have expected or anticipated such an email.”
Wake said “it is entirely plausible that he would have given primary attention to the hundreds of daily emails he receives to his government email address and that he may have neglected to be attentive to his personal emails.”
Stiles, who obtained the documents through a freedom of information request, argued the email contradicted testimony given under oath to the integrity commissioner last year.
In the message from Amato to Sackville, the ministerial chief of staff shared a “list of criteria for removals” of 7,400 acres from the two-million-acre environmentally sensitive Greenbelt around the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.
These include “infrastructure services,” such as proximity to roads, gas and hydro lines and water mains, police and fire services.
The email also listed “potential offsets” such as the Paris Galt Moraine, “green space our government has decided not to move on” as well as “options to go larger depending on executive interest.”
At issue is the timing of the email, which is at odds with testimony made under oath to Wake for his Aug. 30 report on the Greenbelt affair.
“Members of the premier’s staff also told us they were not involved in the selection of properties,” the integrity commissioner wrote last summer.
David Amato was Chef of Staff to a Minister who failed to pay attention to what was going on within his department. That cost Steve Clark his job. Ideally it will cost him his seat in the next provincial election.
“Mr. Sackville said he did not discuss specific properties to be removed or removal criteria with Mr. Amato until the briefing that occurred on Oct. 27, 2022,” he noted at the time.
“Mr. Sackville recalled being first briefed about the Greenbelt project at a meeting facilitated by the cabinet office on Oct. 27, 2022. He told me that he recalled the intentions of the policy were discussed and that it should be ‘programmatic,’ meaning that it should be something that could be repeated and made standard.”
However, that was 10 days after the Oct. 17 email in which criteria for removal of the lands from the Greenbelt were addressed. The changes were finally announced publicly on Nov. 4, 2022.
Sackville and Amato are reported to have declined to comment when contacted by the Star on Thursday.
Premier Ford said he didn’t know a thing – for that he should lose his job. It is his job to know.
Ford has maintained he knew nothing about the removal of 15 parcels of land from the Greenbelt, which were estimated to be worth $8.28 billion to property owners.
In separate reports last summer, the auditor general and integrity commissioner found certain developers with Tory connections were “favoured.”
Under pressure, Ford cancelled the land swap on Sept. 21.
The deal is now being investigated by the RCMP.
The public should demand that the Mounties live up to the once rock solid reputation – they always get their man.
Salt with Pepper is the musings, reflections and opinions of the publisher of the Burlington Gazette, an online newspaper that was formed in 2010 and is a member of the National Newsmedia Council.
These “integrity commissioners” are something else. I won’t say what I think of Ford, his MPPs and his developer “friends.” This is a family paper ….