Drabinsky, school battle over archives

LAWSUIT

current president, Mohamed Lachemi, replaced Levy last year, just as the deal was falling apart.

Drabinsky claims Ryerson knew all along that his donation was conditional on getting a special designation from the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board. He would stand to receive a significant tax credit if the CCPERB declared the archives “cultural property of outstanding significance.”

To receive this status, such cultural property has to be stored in a designated institution, such as Ryerson’s library, that can guarantee the collection’s proper storage and public access. Drabinsky claims to have spent more than $120,000 assembling and cataloguing the material to meet Ryerson’s specifications.

A deal was finally signed in 2014, the year he was granted day parole, and the archives were moved to Ryerson. Drabinsky put up $12,000 for the school’s expenses, and agreed to pay more as needed.

Ryerson also agreed to cull material in order to comply with the CCPERB designation, and to try to achieve that designation by May, 2016. Despite a formal agreement not to do anything that might threaten the special designation and tax deal, however, Drabinsky claims the school “proceeded to thwart and obstruct the processing of the donation and to make unsupported financial demands with implied and actual threats to abort the application if Mr. Drabinsky did not comply.”

For example, in 2015, Drabinsky claims Ryerson demanded an up-front payment of $17,500 for Ryerson to cull some of the archives, or else Drabinsky would risk a higher bill from professional appraisers.

In 2016, he claims Ryerson asked for $40,000 and an extension of processing time, without which it would abandon the entire proposed donation.

After what is described as telephone tag, with no actual meetings, Ryerson asked last September to abandon the whole deal. Drabinsky declined, and asked for another meeting. That was agreed, but delayed, until last December, when Ryerson “insisted” the deal would expire at year’s end.

The CCPERB designation was never achieved. Since November, 2014, that agency’s work has been done by the Administrative Tribunals Support Agency in the Department of Justice.

Julia Shin Doi, Ryerson’s general counsel, said the school is preparing a statement of defence, but has not yet filed it. Drabinsky’s suit was only filed in the last few days.

Drabinsky’s lawyer, John Koch, declined to comment without Drabinsky’s consent, and Drabinsky himself declined an interview.

He is seeking $170,000 for breach of contract and breach of duty of good faith, $145,000 for special damages, and an order “to prevent the defendant from disposing of the archival material pending the trial of this action.”