The shadow political department at Niagara Region
The man at the heart of the controversy surrounding the tainted hiring process for Niagara Region’s chief administrative officer is part of an increasing wave of political operatives working in municipal governments, says Brock University political science professor David Siegel.
“It’s something spreading across municipalities and becoming a concern for staff and
CAOs,” said Siegel. “This is the model that we have seen for a long time at the federal and provincial levels, and now it is slowly creeping into lower tiers of government.”
Robert D’Amboise has been policy director for Regional
Chair Alan Caslin since 2015. According to a 2017 email written by regional CAO Carmen D’Angelo to his counterpart in Pelham, D’Amboise is “employed by the political branch of the corporation.”
Siegel said political branches do not exist as part of a municipality’s organizational structure, but in practical terms, they are becoming publicly funded shadow departments in many municipalities.
“Your municipal staff are interested in giving their best, rational, professional advice to a councillor or council on a particular issue that doesn’t account for how it may affect the re-election of a councillor,” he said.
“The political employee is entirely concerned with the re-election of the councillor.”
A months-long investigation by The Standard looking at the 2016 Region CAO hiring process found that a memo created by D’Amboise containing the identities of other CAO candidates was sent to D’Angelo during that process.
That leak of confidential information has prompted calls for an Ontario Ombudsman’s investigation from some regional councillors. In a Monday email to councillors, Caslin said he has “requested that an independent HR inquiry of the entire hiring process be undertaken.”
The Region’s human resources department is to bring options before council Thursday evening.
The incident is not the first time D’Amboise — a former parliamentary assistant to former
St. Catharines Conservative MP and fallen Ontario Progressive Conservative Party president Rick Dykstra — has drawn attention in political circles.
In 2017, Town of Pelham CAO Darren Ottaway sent an email to D’Angelo saying D’Amboise sent
out-going town accountant Nick Alaimo messages on his personal social media account “pretending to an be an old school friend and asking if he wanted to ‘talk about what was going on in Pelham.’”
At the time of the incident, regional council and the town were locked in a heated debate over Pelham’s finances.
“According to the complaint, there was repeated attempts by Mr. D’Amboise to try and solicit information about our organization from Nick,” wrote Ottaway, whose email says Alaimo did not know D’Amboise and was so alarmed he reported the incident to the town’s HR department.
Ottaway did not hear from the Region after that, nor did he follow up with D’Angelo.
A request for an interview made to D’Amboise for this story was not responded to Tuesday.
In response to an interview request, D’Angelo sent an email saying his reference to the “political branch” of the Region was to
distinguish between the political and operational side of the government.
“My reference is to mean that the Chair is the CEO of the corporation who presides over Council (thus political) whereas the CAO is responsible for the management of the corporation (thus operations),” he wrote.
Alaimo could not be immediately reached for comment.
Caslin declined an interview and in an email said he could not discuss a human resources matter.
The most prominent example of the influence of political staff is the City of Toronto, Siegel said.
“I cannot speak to the situation in Niagara, but in Toronto, there was a real concern with the former mayor that staff could not reach the mayor without going through the political staff,” he said. “So the worry is, to what degree do these political staff act as filters and how does that impact decisions?”
Siegel said political staff are a reflection of the increasingly partisan nature of municipal politics and raises alarm bells for bureaucrats because local governance is supposed to be free of party politics.
Yet political parties are exerting increasing degrees of influence at the local level, he said.
This week, for instance, the St. Catharines federal NDP riding association president said his party must get involved in local politics to counter Liberal and Conservative influences.
For more on this story visit The Standard online at www.niagarafallsreview.ca.