Watchdog asks Brown for income records
Details sought on embattled PC candidate’s disclosure of rent on Lake Simcoe house
The independent watchdog overseeing MPPs’ finances is demanding to know why Progressive Conservative leadership candidate Patrick Brown has not declared rental income on his upscale lakefront home, the Star has learned.
Integrity Commissioner J. David Wake wrote to Brown asking for details follow- ing a Star story that raised questions about how he could afford the five-bedroom house on Lake Simcoe’s Shanty Bay.
“I note that an article in the Toronto Star on February 9, 2018, an employee in your constituency office is quoted saying that you receive rental income from your home,” Wake wrote Feb. 12, well before Conservative MPP Randy Hillier filed a complaint about Brown alleging financial irregularities violating the Members’ Integrity Act earlier this week.
“The Act also requires that you disclose all sources of income to my office, and as such I ask that you provide me with confirmation of same,” adds Wake’s letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Star.
Brown, who now sits as Independent MPP after being ejected from the PC caucus, was reluctant to answer questions about the lack of disclosure Thursday in a brief interview, initially saying he was “busy.”
“Everything is in compliance with the integrity commissioner,” said Brown, who quit the leader’s job Jan. 25 after a CTV News report — which he vigorously denies — accusing him of sexual misconduct with two 19-year-old women.
“We’ll have a response to the integrity commissioner shortly,” added Brown, who declined to provide details before being whisked off by a waiting minivan near Yonge and Eglinton.
The embattled former PC leader would also not answer questions on whether he receives an income from his 9.9 per cent stake in the downtown Barrie restaurant and sports bar, Hooligans.
“Everything is in compliance with the integrity commissioner.” PATRICK BROWN FORMER PC LEADER
Later Thursday, Brown released a letter to Wake describing the Hillier complaints as “fabricated” and accusing the Tory MPP, who supports Christine Elliott in the March 10 leadership contest, of foul play.
“It is unfortunate that Mr. Hillier, a legislator who claims to represent hard-working taxpayers, has opted to usurp the resources of a taxpayerfunded institution such as the Office of the Integrity Commissioner to fight an internal party leadership race.”
Brown also denied Hillier’s accusations that he accepted travel as gifts, saying all trips were “cultural outreach missions . . . paid for by the PC party, approved by the PC Ontario Fund, and arranged in part by senior staff now working in the office of interim leader Vic Fedeli.”
But Brown, who is single and 39, did not specifically address Hillier’s concerns that international travel for his girlfriend, former $500-a-week Conservative intern Genevieve Gualtieri, 23, was paid for by others.
He refused to answer Star questions on Gualtieri’s jet-setting with him to India, Lebanon and other locales.
Regarding the waterfront manse in a well-to-do Lake Simcoe enclave north of Barrie, Brown said his mortgage payments were about $90,000 a year on a gross income of $180,000 as leader, or $120,000 net.
“That left me with $30,000 in post-mortgage, after-tax income — which is, as it turns out, the same amount retained by the average Ontarian after taxes and mortgage/rent payments,” Brown wrote in a two-page missive frequently touting tax cuts and other promises in his moribund People’s Guarantee platform for the June 7 provincial election.
Brown, who now earns $116,500 as a backbench MPP after being turfed from the PC caucus, did not make any mention of the costs of property taxes, estimated at $16,500 annually in a 2016 real estate listing, utilities or upkeep on the sprawling house.
Publicly available records first reported by the Star show the home was purchased for $2.3 million in July 2016, just over a year after he became PC leader, with a mortgage of $1.72 million.
The letter from Wake earlier this month states Brown in September 2017 submitted information listing the property value as just $1.91 million with a remaining mortgage of $1.64 million. Wake’s memo also notes Brown wrote to him Feb. 5 — two weeks after losing his job as leader and taking a hefty pay cut — to say he obtained “a short-term secondary loan” on the property.
Wake also called for more details on “updated financing information for the property, i.e. the amount(s) and the lender(s).”
Despite the allegations against him, Brown got the green light to run in the leadership race from the party’s provincial nominations committee Wednesday, causing a stir at Queen’s Park.
MPP Deb Matthews, co-chair of the Liberal re-election campaign, said the accusations against Brown suggest “unacceptable behaviour for someone who aspires to be premier of the province.”
“This is a guy who has admitted to (having) very young women in his home with alcohol. His behaviour, by his own admission, is not OK,” Matthews said, adding his candidacy makes the Tories look bad and will leave lasting damage.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said the Brown imbroglio proves the Tories are not fit to govern, with an election just three months after they pick a new leader.
“It’s really apparent that this party does not have its house in order and they are not prepared to take the reins of government in Ontario,” Horwath said.
Conservative MPP Todd Smith, a co-chair of Elliott’s leadership campaign, said he was “a bit surprised” Brown got the go-ahead. “I’m sure he’s going to give it the best (but) he’s got to try and win back his old job. I just don’t think he can do it. I think there’s been too much damage.”
Also running for the job are rookie PC candidate Caroline Mulroney, ex-Toronto city councillor Doug Ford and Tanya Granic Allen, an anti-sex education crusader.
“We need to do better. We need someone who will stand up for integrity and put party before self,” Mulroney, the daughter of former prime minister Brian Mulroney, tweeted Thursday in a shot at Brown.