No conflict over lobbyist, say Therrien and Akapo
Cragg was mayor’s ex-campaign manager and at present heads councillor’s employer
Andy Cragg, the mayor’s former campaign manager and the current employer of Coun. Kemi Akapo, has been lobbying city council for a $10-million investment in a local foundation that funds initiatives in his workplace — but there’s no conflict of interest, say Cragg’s board of directors and the politicians.
Cragg is the executive director of the New Canadians Centre (NCC), where Akapo works as a case management co-ordinator. He was also Mayor Diane Therrien’s campaign manager in the 2018 municipal election.
Cragg wrote two letters to the mayor and council — one on May 22, 2020, and another on Feb. 8 — asking them to consider investing in the Community Foundation of Greater Peterborough.
Council has been considering ways to invest $57.9 million in proceeds from the sale of Peterborough Distribution Inc. (PDI) to Hydro One.
The Community Foundation has asked council for an investment of $10 million from the proceeds — the rest the city could bank. The idea would be to create a revenue stream of about $500,000 annually for council to use “at its discretion,” writes fund development director John Good in a new letter to The Examiner.
It was one of several investment ideas council has been considering, but no final decision is expected until it gets a chance to hear from all proponents (including the foundation) at a meeting in March.
That deferral came at a committee meeting Feb. 8, when councillors had been considering a staff recommendation that they invest the money through a Toronto investment firm that caters to municipalities. But the foundation had lobbied council to not rule out their proposal, so councillors opted for the deferral.
Cragg had sent a letter in May and a further one dated Feb. 8 — the day of the meeting — in support of the foundation.
Neither Therrien nor Akapo declared a pecuniary interest — they both participated in the discussion and in the vote to hear out all proponents.
There was no need to recuse themselves because there was no conflict, both Therrien and Akapo stated via email.
“I spoke with the city’s integrity commissioner. There was no conflict,” Therrien wrote.
Akapo said in her email she’d supported a motion from Coun. Henry Clarke to hear from all proponents because it will make for a better-informed decision.
“That said, given your inquiries and the insinuation that a conflict of interest might be at play, I also took the opportunity to raise this topic with the city’s integrity commissioner who advised me no conflict exists,”
Akapo wrote.
Cragg’s two letters to council state that funding from the foundation has helped the
NCC start programs such as entrepreneurship training for newcomer women.
Cragg was asked for comment this week and the NCC board of directors responded.
They wrote in a letter that the NCC was one of “more than a dozen local organizations” that has supported the foundation’s proposal, that they followed their internal conflict of interest policy and that Cragg has not been employed by Therrien since 2018.
All councillors were asked about it. Most did not respond or had no comment.
Coun. Stephen Wright said in an email that council constantly receives letters on various issues and that’s “welcome and encouraged.” “Simply receiving a letter from a resident providing feedback would not constitute a conflict of interest,” Wright wrote.
Coun. Dean Pappas said it’s up to every councillor to decide for themselves what constitutes a conflict.
He notes that every time there’s a council decision that might benefit The Mount Community Centre, for example, he declares a conflict because his mother lives across the street. “Even though there’s no money being exchanged, there’s an appearance of pecuniary interest — that’s my threshold.”