OPP closes investigation into hiring of former Region CAO
Police say statute of limitations prevents pursuit of charges
No one involved in the 2016 Niagara Region chief administrative officer hiring scandal will be the subject of an Ontario Provincial Police criminal investigation, the Standard has learned.
In an email obtained by the Standard, the Ontario Provincial Police anti-racketeering unit said it will not pursue a criminal investigation into the hiring of Carmen D’angelo — a hiring Ontario’s ombudsman found to be “unjust and wrong.”
In the email, the OPP said there was “no evidence of criminal activity associated to the hiring of Mr. D’angelo.”
However, the police did say the hiring, which involved D’angelo receiving several confidential documents created by the staff of then-regional chair Alan Caslin, may have violated the Provincial Offences Act, although the email did not specify how.
But the OPP said due to the statute of limitations for those offences — which expire six months after an alleged offences is committed — “prevented us from moving forward in this regard.”
After a more than 400-day investigation which followed more than 18 months of reporting by the Standard, Ontario Ombudsman Paul Dubé found D’angelo’s hiring to be an “inside job” orchestrated from Caslin’s office.
It was a scheme that stretched back to 2015, and involved members of regional council who sat on the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority board, where D’angelo worked at the time, providing confidential government information to him. Also involved was then
Port Colborne regional council and then-ncpa manager David Barrick, who tried to get at least one Region manager to recruit D’angelo as Region chief administrative officer months in advance of the start the hiring process.
Before and during the hiring process, D’angelo downloaded secret and confidential documents no other candidate for the job had access to. These documents included questions and answers to interview questions, revisions of a written submission to the hiring committee, drafts of chair’s reports about the chief administrative officer position, and confidential biographical information on other candidates.
Most of the documents were created by Caslin’s top aides — his policy director Robert D’amboise and his then-communications director Jason Tamming.
During the Ombudsman probe, D’angelo initially told investigators he did not recall receiving the documents and that they were either fabricated or “planted” on his NPCA computer. However, when faced with forensic evidence showing the documents were authentic and that he had received them, D’angelo said the likely source of the documents was D’amboise.
The Phelps Group — the Toronto recruiting firm hired to manage the chief administrative officer hiring — has said if it knew D’angelo had these documents it would have shut down the selection process.
In his December 2019 report on his investigation into D’angelo’s hiring, Dube said D’angelo “was provided with substantive content to be used in his application materials by insiders who had access to information not available to the general public or to other candidates.”
“The lack of fairness and transparency in the hiring process created controversy and distrust within the region and served to undermine public confidence in local government.”
After the report was published, several current regional councillors — including former RCMP officers Kevin Gibson, Wainfleet’s mayor, and Tom Insinna, a Fort Erie councillor — called for a criminal probe.
Regional council voted to send to the report to Niagara Regional
Police with a request for further investigation. The NRP, in turn, forwarded that request to the OPP because the Region funds the local police service.
The OPP conducted a preliminary investigation to determine if it would proceed with a full criminal probe, and determined it would not.
Caslin, D’amboise and Tamming still face an $850,000 lawsuit filed against them by Niagara Region. The Region is alleging they were engaged in a conspiracy to manipulate the chief administrative officer hiring process.
The trio has formed a united legal front against the Region and are represented by Toronto law firm Miller Thomson LLP.
D’angelo is also embroiled in legal action against the Region.
D’angelo left his post in February 2019 and filed a $1.15-million constructive dismissal suit against the Region.
D’angelo, who claims he is the victim of a “proxy war” between councillors, has since asked the Region to settle for $500,000, an offer that was refused by council.
Councillors were recently informed by their lawyers that D’angelo intends to get a court order to prevent the Region from obtaining key documents from the NPCA servers which were core evidence used by both the Standard and Ombudsman investigations.
All of those documents have been published by the Standard over the course of its investigation.
The OPP did not respond to an interview request from the Standard Monday.