Petrowski asked to resign
Porn email leads to further demands St. Catharines councillor step down
After a pornographic image was sent to more than 100 people from his government email address Monday afternoon, St. Catharines regional Coun. Andy Petrowski is being asked to resign from office.
In an emailed statement, Regional Chair Alan Caslin called the incident “reprehensible and the conduct is completely unacceptable for a regional councillor,” and said he had spoken directly to Petrowski to ask him to step down.
Caslin was responding to a “reply all” email sent from Petrowski’s regional account to a message from regional staff about lane closures on the Burgoyne Bridge.
The message from Petrowski’s account included an image of a naked blond woman sitting on a stool with her legs spread open.
Caslin, who refused multiple interview requests from The
Standard Monday, does not indicate how Petrowski responded to his request.
Petrowski also did not respond to questions about resigning.
Petrowski did email an apology for the pornographic email, claiming that someone else used his government-issued iPad to send the message. “I take full responsibility for the lack of judgment in leaving my regional email system unlocked,” Petrowski wrote to
The Standard in an email. “I apologize to everyone for the previous email just sent … this was sent in error as a terrible message by someone who was using my iPad I thought to send a private message. I am very sorry for this unacceptable and inappropriate transmission.”
It is the second time in as many years that Petrowski has claimed an offending message sent from his communication devices was someone else’s handiwork.
He used the same mea culpa in January 2016 after Niagara Regional Police Chief Jeff McGuire received a text message from Petrowski’s phone that read, “Hello clown are you a tyrant?”
At the time Petrowski was a member of the police services board under investigation by the Ontario Civilian Police Commission. He claimed he left his phone unattended and someone used it to send McGuire the message.
As in the case of the pornographic email, Petrowski would not identify the person he claimed sent the text message.
The latest controversy surrounding Petrowski followed a noon-hour email notification from Niagara Region that said traffic on the Burgoyne Bridge will be reduced to one lane from June 1 to June 16 for construction.
The message was sent to more than 100 people, including St. Catharines regional councillors, the St. Catharines city clerk, the head of Brock University security, local radio stations and Niagara Student Transportation Services.
At 12:24 p.m., St. Catharines regional Coun. Bruce Timms replied to the email writing “Thank you it will be good to see these final touches.”
About an hour later, the email from Petrowski’s account was sent to everyone on the list.
“There must have been a sale on these multimillion-dollar, taxpayer-funded, non-functional arches … guess who put these up in Ottawa. You’re right if you said … drum roll, please … ’Pomerlau’ … what a joke!” the message said.
The image of the naked woman was inserted into the body of the message. Unlike an email attachment, an inserted image is seen as soon as the email is opened.
Six minutes later, Petrowski emailed his apology to everyone who received the pornographic image. The Standard asked Petrowski several times to identify who he thinks sent the email, but he declined to answer the question, calling the newspaper “fake news.”
“The only thing ‘outstanding’ is when will the hit job storytellers/opinion makers at your financially struggling, penny stock Fake News fish wrapper/ bird cage liner find their place in a museum or is that pedestal already taken by the dodo?” he wrote in an email to The Standard that added a “crap” emoji to a reporter’s email signature.
Local political reaction was swift after the email exchange was first reported on Twitter by Newstalk 1010 reporter Siobhan Morris Monday afternoon.
In his emailed statement, Caslin said “as regional chair, I demand better when conducting business on behalf of the Region.”
“On behalf of Niagara Region and our council, I have sincerely apologized to the recipients of the email,” he wrote. “Please know that an individual councillor’s comments do not represent the values of our organization.
“I have insisted that the councillor meet with me tomorrow at 9 a.m. to discuss limits on his use of regional devices and email accounts.
“Further, I have spoken directly to the councillor about this egregious conduct, and have requested that he resign from regional council.”
St. Catharines Mayor Walter Sendzik said he was still “in shock” when asked about the email Monday afternoon.
Although he was on the email list, Sendzik said he was unaware of the email until he was informed by the city’s clerk.
Sendzik, who supports Caslin’s response to the incident, said he is skeptical about Petrowski’s claim that the email was sent by someone else. He said regional councillors are issued an iPad that is passcode locked to prevent anyone other than an authorized user from accessing it.
“If you look at how it is written, if you look at the language, how it is phrased, that is how Coun. Petrowski writes,” Sendzik said.
St. Catharines regional Coun. Debbie MacGregor said she was appalled by the image in the email, which she opened at work.
“This is perhaps the biggest cry for help from (Coun. Petrowski) we’ve ever seen,” MacGregor said. “He has proven several times that he cannot be trusted to use regional devices and accounts properly.”
MacGregor and Sendzik said regional council has spent too much time dealing with conduct issues connected to Petrowski, which is pushing other matters to the backburner.
“Yes, absolutely, he should resign,” MacGregor said. “Get him out of there, and maybe council can focus on getting something done for the people of this region.”
Petrowski is the subject of three recent integrity commissioner reports. Debate over the reports lasted four hours during the last council meeting.
John Mascarin, the acting integrity commissioner, found Petrowski violated the regional code of conduct several times on Twitter and once during a meeting of Pelham town council. Mascarin described some of Petrowski’s tweets as “puerile,” “disdainful,” “insulting,” “amateurish,” “ridiculous” and “odious.”
“This is not a case of a single offensive tweet — there are six separate instances of offensive tweets being sent out by the councillor,” Mascarin wrote in one of three reports.
Mascarin’s reports recommended Petrowski apologize publicly for his conduct. Sendzik put forward a motion that council remove Petrowski from all regional committees until he has attended a sensitivity training course. That motion is expected to be voted on at the next council meeting on June 8.
Condemnation over Monday’s email also came from St. Catharines MP Chris Bittle, who repeated his previous call for Petrowski to resign from office.
“As I have stated previously, this pattern of behaviour has not ceased — in fact it has only gotten worse,” Bittle said in a statement. “The councillor in question has shown no contrition for his actions whatsoever. Even after multiple findings of wrong doing from the regional ethics commissioner, this pattern continues. Our regional leaders must act on this matter, enough is enough. This behaviour is completely unacceptable, and is degrading to the public discourse.
“It continues to foster the negative view the public have of local elected officials. It must stop now — Mr. Petrowski must resign, and allow council to get back to the important work of serving the people of Niagara.”