Toronto city Councillors Grimes and Di Ciano charged with Elections Act offences over 2014 campaign expenses
By JENNIFER PAGLIARO City Hall Bureau
DAVID RIDER City Hall Bureau Chief
Fri., Nov. 16, 2018
Toronto city Councillors Mark Grimes and Justin Di Ciano have been charged by police with filing false campaign expenses following the 2014 election.
The Etobicoke councillors are alleged to have not disclosed approximately $26,000 each in campaign expenses related to the 2014 election, an Ontario Provincial Police spokesperson said. The charges, under the Municipal Elections Act, are not criminal.
The charges were announced in an OPP news release Friday morning. The pair has been under investigation by the OPP’s anti-rackets branch, which is in charge of probing complex fraud cases, after it received a request from the Toronto police in September 2017 to look into a referral from the city’s independent integrity commissioner.
The OPP said the charges are directly related to an allegation first reported by the CBC that the two councillors had benefited from polling and research in their wards totalling more than $40,000 that was paid for by a developer, Dunpar Homes, and was not accounted for in their expenses.
Grimes won re-election on Oct. 22 with help from Mayor John Tory, who endorsed him after news broke that the councillor was under OPP investigation. Tory voiced a robocall urging residents to vote for Grimes — a reliable vote for Tory at council — and the mayor’s campaign provided logistical support to the Grimes campaign.
Di Ciano did not seek re-election, which would have pitted him against his friend Grimes after the number of wards was reduced to 25.
The charges come as Tory’s office considers who to align with on a slimmed-down council, with appointments to prime positions, including his executive committee, to be made next month.
Penalties for convictions on the charges include fines of up to $25,000 and a prohibition on running in the next two municipal elections, the OPP said.
When the CBC reported the allegations earlier this year, Di Ciano denied having polling paid for by Dunpar. Grimes called the allegations “unfounded.”
A statement released Friday by Grimes on his official city letterhead, quoting his lawyer, who is not identified, reads: “Councillor Grimes has done nothing wrong. An allegation has been made that he should have made additional financial disclosure for his campaign from four years ago. No such disclosure was required. There is no credible evidence to support the allegation, which was made for political purposes.”
A statement from lawyer Scott Fenton says Di Ciano “looks forward to setting the record straight on any alleged clerical errors in his 2014 campaign expense return.” It goes on to say: “The real offence here is the extraordinary waste of scarce government resources spent chasing down minor alleged oversights regarding a long-forgotten municipal election campaign.”
The OPP declined to comment on those statements.
The CBC story cited by the OPP includes what appear to be documents related to polling conducted by the firm Campaign Research. They outline voters’ preferences for Di Ciano compared to former councillor Peter Milcyzn, and for Grimes compared to several other named candidates in their respective wards.
Campaign Research is run in part by one of Tory’s chief strategists, Nick Kouvalis.
There is no allegation of wrongdoing on the part of Dunpar or Campaign Research. A representative from Dunpar could not be reached for comment. Kouvalis could also not be reached.
In a statement, Tory told the Star he would not comment on the charges while they are before the courts.
Both Grimes and Di Ciano did claim some expenses from Campaign Research for polling and robocalls, according to invoices filed with the city’s elections office. For Grimes, the services totalled $1,808 and for Di Ciano, $2,773.
If, in fact, the councillors should have claimed an additional $26,000 in campaign expenses each, their financial statements filed for that period show they both would have been over their campaign spending limits for the 2014 election — which could result in additional penalties.
There is no mechanism for council to remove someone from office if they are found guilty of an Elections Act offence.
Both councillors were at a Friday morning meeting with other members of the Exhibition Place board, where there was no mention of the OPP, said Councillor Mike Layton. Both seemed in good spirits and left when the meeting ended around 9:30 a.m., said Layton, who declined to comment on the charges because he didn’t know the details.
Asked if Grimes should recuse himself from appointments in the new council term until the case is finished, fellow Exhibition Place board member Councillor Jim Karygiannis said, “Everybody steps back when they face something. That will be up to Councillor Grimes and up to the mayor to decide what appointments to give him given the circumstances.”
In 2016, the city’s integrity commissioner Valerie Jepson found Grimes had what she called “improper” dealings with developers after a 17-month investigation. Her resulting report did not mention Dunpar.
Earlier, both Grimes and Di Ciano were at the middle of a controversial debate over the use of a strip of land in the Mimico-Judson area. At the urging of the two councillors, council and Tory approved the conversion of that land that would allow Dunpar to develop townhomes near what will be a noisy rail yard, against the advice of senior city staff and the provincial transit agency Metrolinx.
In 2015, the compliance audit committee rejected a detailed citizen request for an audit of Grimes’s finances that alleged he had overspent the limit by tens of thousands of dollars. The committee met secretly to discuss the matter. The Campaign Research polling was not part of the complaint. The committee gave no reasons for their decision not to direct an audit.
Russ Ford, who came second to Grimes in the 2014 election, said he couldn’t speak to the charges since they haven’t been litigated yet, but said the allegations are disheartening.
“Guilty or innocent, it’s a stain on the process,” he said. “People who run for office — I’m not saying Grimes didn’t — but you got to play by the rules. It’s the integrity of the process that’s at question as well as the individual.”
Grimes and Di Ciano are scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 19.
Jennifer Pagliaro is a Toronto-based reporter covering city politics. Follow her on Twitter: @jpags
David Rider is the Star's City Hall bureau chief and a reporter covering Toronto politics. Follow him on Twitter: @dmrider
https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2018/11/16/etobicoke-councillors-grimes-and-di-ciano-charged-with-elections-act-offences-over-2014-campaign-expenses.html
By JENNIFER PAGLIARO City Hall Bureau
DAVID RIDER City Hall Bureau Chief
Fri., Nov. 16, 2018
Toronto city Councillors Mark Grimes and Justin Di Ciano have been charged by police with filing false campaign expenses following the 2014 election.
The Etobicoke councillors are alleged to have not disclosed approximately $26,000 each in campaign expenses related to the 2014 election, an Ontario Provincial Police spokesperson said. The charges, under the Municipal Elections Act, are not criminal.
The charges were announced in an OPP news release Friday morning. The pair has been under investigation by the OPP’s anti-rackets branch, which is in charge of probing complex fraud cases, after it received a request from the Toronto police in September 2017 to look into a referral from the city’s independent integrity commissioner.
The OPP said the charges are directly related to an allegation first reported by the CBC that the two councillors had benefited from polling and research in their wards totalling more than $40,000 that was paid for by a developer, Dunpar Homes, and was not accounted for in their expenses.
Grimes won re-election on Oct. 22 with help from Mayor John Tory, who endorsed him after news broke that the councillor was under OPP investigation. Tory voiced a robocall urging residents to vote for Grimes — a reliable vote for Tory at council — and the mayor’s campaign provided logistical support to the Grimes campaign.
Di Ciano did not seek re-election, which would have pitted him against his friend Grimes after the number of wards was reduced to 25.
The charges come as Tory’s office considers who to align with on a slimmed-down council, with appointments to prime positions, including his executive committee, to be made next month.
Penalties for convictions on the charges include fines of up to $25,000 and a prohibition on running in the next two municipal elections, the OPP said.
When the CBC reported the allegations earlier this year, Di Ciano denied having polling paid for by Dunpar. Grimes called the allegations “unfounded.”
A statement released Friday by Grimes on his official city letterhead, quoting his lawyer, who is not identified, reads: “Councillor Grimes has done nothing wrong. An allegation has been made that he should have made additional financial disclosure for his campaign from four years ago. No such disclosure was required. There is no credible evidence to support the allegation, which was made for political purposes.”
A statement from lawyer Scott Fenton says Di Ciano “looks forward to setting the record straight on any alleged clerical errors in his 2014 campaign expense return.” It goes on to say: “The real offence here is the extraordinary waste of scarce government resources spent chasing down minor alleged oversights regarding a long-forgotten municipal election campaign.”
The OPP declined to comment on those statements.
The CBC story cited by the OPP includes what appear to be documents related to polling conducted by the firm Campaign Research. They outline voters’ preferences for Di Ciano compared to former councillor Peter Milcyzn, and for Grimes compared to several other named candidates in their respective wards.
Campaign Research is run in part by one of Tory’s chief strategists, Nick Kouvalis.
There is no allegation of wrongdoing on the part of Dunpar or Campaign Research. A representative from Dunpar could not be reached for comment. Kouvalis could also not be reached.
In a statement, Tory told the Star he would not comment on the charges while they are before the courts.
Both Grimes and Di Ciano did claim some expenses from Campaign Research for polling and robocalls, according to invoices filed with the city’s elections office. For Grimes, the services totalled $1,808 and for Di Ciano, $2,773.
If, in fact, the councillors should have claimed an additional $26,000 in campaign expenses each, their financial statements filed for that period show they both would have been over their campaign spending limits for the 2014 election — which could result in additional penalties.
There is no mechanism for council to remove someone from office if they are found guilty of an Elections Act offence.
Both councillors were at a Friday morning meeting with other members of the Exhibition Place board, where there was no mention of the OPP, said Councillor Mike Layton. Both seemed in good spirits and left when the meeting ended around 9:30 a.m., said Layton, who declined to comment on the charges because he didn’t know the details.
Asked if Grimes should recuse himself from appointments in the new council term until the case is finished, fellow Exhibition Place board member Councillor Jim Karygiannis said, “Everybody steps back when they face something. That will be up to Councillor Grimes and up to the mayor to decide what appointments to give him given the circumstances.”
In 2016, the city’s integrity commissioner Valerie Jepson found Grimes had what she called “improper” dealings with developers after a 17-month investigation. Her resulting report did not mention Dunpar.
Earlier, both Grimes and Di Ciano were at the middle of a controversial debate over the use of a strip of land in the Mimico-Judson area. At the urging of the two councillors, council and Tory approved the conversion of that land that would allow Dunpar to develop townhomes near what will be a noisy rail yard, against the advice of senior city staff and the provincial transit agency Metrolinx.
In 2015, the compliance audit committee rejected a detailed citizen request for an audit of Grimes’s finances that alleged he had overspent the limit by tens of thousands of dollars. The committee met secretly to discuss the matter. The Campaign Research polling was not part of the complaint. The committee gave no reasons for their decision not to direct an audit.
Russ Ford, who came second to Grimes in the 2014 election, said he couldn’t speak to the charges since they haven’t been litigated yet, but said the allegations are disheartening.
“Guilty or innocent, it’s a stain on the process,” he said. “People who run for office — I’m not saying Grimes didn’t — but you got to play by the rules. It’s the integrity of the process that’s at question as well as the individual.”
Grimes and Di Ciano are scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 19.
Jennifer Pagliaro is a Toronto-based reporter covering city politics. Follow her on Twitter: @jpags
David Rider is the Star's City Hall bureau chief and a reporter covering Toronto politics. Follow him on Twitter: @dmrider
https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2018/11/16/etobicoke-councillors-grimes-and-di-ciano-charged-with-elections-act-offences-over-2014-campaign-expenses.html
