Who’s pulling the lawyer’s strings?
External counsel hired by region actively worked to interfere with Ombudsman’s report
Niagara Regional councillors say they don’t know who, if anyone, directed the Region’s lawyer to take an “adversarial” tone and provide misinformation to the Ontario Ombudsman investigating the ejection of a reporter from a December regional council meeting.
Ontario Ombudsman Paul Dube wrote in his report Press Pause, published Wednesday, that an external lawyer hired by the Region attempted to “influence our investigative process, challenge our well-established statutory authority and dictate the content of my report.”
At least three regional councillors – St. Catharines Mayor Walter Sendzik, Pelham Mayor Dave Augustyn and St. Catharines Coun. Brian Heit – said they emailed the Region’s CAO after reading the report for more information about the external lawyer’s role.
Sendzik said he was shocked to read a lawyer hired by the region tried to interfere with the Ombudsman’s report, adding that was the most damning part of the report in his opinion.
“It’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing as a regional councillor, it’s embarrassing as a resident and a citizen of Niagara, to have to yet again question why these kinds of activities are taking place,” Sendzik said Thursday.
“Because all we had to do was comply with the Ombudsman in terms of being part of the process. Everyone just had to say what they thought happened, wait for the report to come out and then comply with the recommendations.”
Sendzik said there’s no harm in saying council made some mistakes on Dec. 7.
“There’s no harm in that. Why you have to hire an external counsellor to try and influence, try and change a report like this? You sort of question the integrity of the decision-making, that’s all.”
The Ombudsman launched an investigation on Dec. 14 into a Dec. 7 regional council meeting in which St. Catharines Standard reporter Bill Sawchuk and a citizen blogger Preston Haskell were ejected form a meeting and their property was seized.
The report found the region acted “unreasonably, wrongly and without legal justification”
and offered 14 recommendations to the Region.
The Ombudsman team conducted 52 interviews, including with regional staff, council members and other witnesses.
The Region hired Jennifer Teskey of Bay Street legal firm Norton Rose Fulbright Canada to represent the municipality, according to an email to councillors in January, because the Region’s own in-house lawyer was part of the ongoing investigation.
Dube’s report said most public sector bodies do not deal with his office through legal counsel but they are entirely within their rights to do so to provide their clients with advice and guidance through the process and make recommendations.
“However, it is unfortunate and counterproductive when legal counsel bring an adversarial approach to their involvement in an Ombudsman investigation, as happened in this case,” he wrote.
Dube wrote the lawyer betrayed what he could only describe as a “disturbing lack of understanding” of his office and its authority.
He noted in his footnotes when Teskey provided comments that were contradicted by police, regional staff, the Standard reporter as well as photographic, audio and video evidence. “I believe it is important to address these points and set the record straight for the benefit of all Ontario stakeholders, to guard against misinformation.”
Niagara Region spokesman Jason Tamming said Thursday by email that Regional CAO Carmen D’Angelo signed the engagement letter with external legal counsel, which included the lawyer’s fees. The Region’s senior administration and its legal and court services division liaised with the lawyer.
The Region would not release the cost of those services Thursday. Tamming said for those records the newspaper may submit a Freedom of Information request.
He did say the final invoice has not yet been received by the Region.
St. Catharines Coun. Bruce Timms said it sounded like the lawyer was pressing too hard and may have overstepped her bounds if she was trying to dictate what was in the report as the Ombudsman wrote.
But Timms added the Ombudsman may have been “a little over sensitive.”
“He’s in a process trying to establish whether the region did anything wrong and the region’s lawyer is trying to press the case we didn’t, or defend the region,” Timms said.
“He’s supposed to deliver a report on what’s right and wrong. Complaining how the various lawyers conducted themselves is a little beyond what he should be addressing, I think.”
But Augustyn, who is running for regional chair in October, said it is “shocking and disheartening that outside legal counsel, on somebody's recommendation, was doing that.”
“That’s my question. Who was directing legal counsel?” he said.
Augustyn said since council did not meet to discuss the Ombudsman’s report, direction to Teskey would come from D’Angelo or Regional Chair Alan Caslin.
However, Augustyn said council should have had a say in that direction.
“There is a whole question about who was advising external legal counsel to take such an adversarial approach,” he said. “That was certainly not the approach that was stated publicly, and I think that is why the Ombudsman is so upset.”
In a Thursday press release, Augustyn called on Caslin and D’Angelo to apologize for the external lawyer’s conduct.
Caslin and Teskey did not respond to requests for an interview.