Councillors get OK to take freebie Grey Cup tickets
Multiple city councillors have accepted free tickets to the Grey Cup game at Lansdowne on Sunday, claiming $1,000 pairs of seats in the north-side stands as our representatives.
These are presents from the Canadian Football League and the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group, the city government’s business partner at Lansdowne, and the city’s integrity commissioner Robert Marleau has ruled that not only can the politicians take the tickets, but they also don’t have to be included in councillors’ routine disclosures of gifts they receive.
Seeing this coming, council’s ethics adviser sent councillors and their assistants a mass email a month ago, with the subject line “integrity / integrité.”
“As the city is both the host for the Grey Cup, and one of its organizing partners, it is my belief that all members of council may be invited on the basis of their representative roles,” he told them. “As such, up to one pair of tickets issued by the event organizers may be accepted under members’ roles as elected officials/community leaders.”
The city sponsored the CFL’s championship game with tax dollars, not to mention rebuilt the stadium where the game will be played, so city councillors and a friend can get in free. That’s partnership. Council members can also snaffle $100 in “food and cocktails provided by the event,” though any more than that and they’d have to report it. Also, Marleau warned, make sure any party you might go to around the game isn’t organized by a lobbyist or anyone who’s hired a lobbyist.
Which means it’s also OK to accept $150 tickets to an official tailgate party at the Aberdeen Pavilion, which are also on offer, Marleau clarified in a fresh note on Friday afternoon. Though because that’s technically a distinct event, any politician who goes will have to disclose the freebie on the official registry.
Mayor Jim Watson is going to the game, his press secretary Livia Belcea said.
“Mayor Watson will be in the north side, at the invitation of the CFL commissioner,” she wrote in an email Friday. “The integrity commissioner has indicated that these tickets do not need to be disclosed, as the Grey Cup is an Ottawa 2017 event and has received funding from the Major Events Fund.”
The tickets councillors were offered are in Section E, about halfway back. That’s in the middle of the field, some of the best seats at TD Place outside a corporate box. They retailed for $525 each, though on the secondary market online they’re going for a few bucks less. Besides Watson, councillors who say they’re going are: Capital Coun. David Chernushenko, Gloucester-Southgate Coun. Diane Deans, Knoxdale-Merivale Coun. Keith Egli, West CarletonMarch Coun. Eli El-Chantiry, Rideau-Vanier Coun. Mathieu Fleury, Innes Coun. Jody Mitic, Rideau-Goulbourn Coun. Scott Moffatt, Orléans Coun. Bob Monette, Bay Coun. Mark Taylor, Kanata North Coun. Marianne Wilkinson.
Some of these people would have fair claims to tickets if a block were being distributed at the city’s discretion, or if the city had bought them.
“I received two tickets from OSEG as I represented the city on the Grey Cup Festival committee planning the Grey Cup for the past four to five months,” Monette said.
Fleury said much the same thing: “I am on the organizing committee of the Grey Cup and I will be there with my wife; my tickets came from OSEG.”
Chernushenko said he’s going only because he’s the councillor for the Lansdowne area.
“For the last 18 months, I have devoted a great deal of energy to helping Ottawa, the host committee and the Glebe (Business Improvement Area) pull off this once-in-a-decade event, not to mention keeping the traffic and pre- and after-parties from overwhelming local neighbourhoods,” Chernushenko explained by email.
He gets about 50 invitations to things each week, he said, and struggles sometimes with which ones to accept, which ones to decline, which things he might go to if he had some other job, and which things are strictly duty.
“It’s perfectly reasonable for media to scrutinize what gifts or event tickets councillors accept, but also important to acknowledge the time and effort we devote to representing our wards and the city on our own time, and often on our own dime,” he said.
He hopes the game will be fun, Chernushenko said, but he’s going “for work.”
Mitic said his designation as city council’s sports commissioner makes his attendance important.
“I purchased two tickets through my office budget as sports commissioner as soon as tickets were available,” the Innes councillor said by email. “They are located on the north side in the handicap accessible seating area. Since purchasing the tickets, Mr. Roger Greenberg of the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group offered every member of council two complimentary tickets. I accepted these complimentary tickets which are again located on the north side in the accessible seating area.”
He’s reimbursing the city for the tickets he’d bought, he said.
River Coun. Riley Brockington took tickets but isn’t going: he’s on an annual trip to celebrate American Thanksgiving in Florida with family.
But, he said, he passed his pair on to an assistant.
Several councillors say they just turned the tickets down: College Coun. Rick Chiarelli, Alta Vista Coun. Jean Cloutier, Osgoode Coun. George Darouze, Barrhaven Coun. Jan Harder, Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper, Somerset Coun. Catherine McKenney, Rideau-Rockcliffe Coun. Tobi Nussbaum, Stittsville Coun. Shad Qadri.
A handful didn’t answer my questions put Friday morning about whether they’d be going and if so, who’d paid for their tickets. Look to see whether they’re in the pricey part of the north-side stands Sunday:
Cumberland Coun. Stephen Blais, Kanata South Coun. Allan Hubley, Gloucester-South Nepean Coun. Michael Qaqish, Beacon Hill-Cyrville Coun. Tim Tierney.
One way to look at this is that people of Ottawa, who are pitching in money for this thing via our government, are getting complimentary tickets, via our government. But you might think these $24,000 worth of tickets would be great to distribute in a manner that rewards citizenship and promotes community — raffled off, given to recipients of “citybuilder” awards from council, or handed out in draws to bus drivers with spotless records, heroic cops and firefighters and paramedics, or kids in city housing.
Rather, many of the people who vote on deals with OSEG and agreed to hand over the sponsorship money, citizen money, are getting thousand-dollar freebies they didn’t even have to tell anybody about.