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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 17 July 2015

Three months ago, Premier Kathleen Wynne told us that, as part of the Regional Express Rail Program, GO trains will be running every 15 minutes from Union Station to Aurora. But just north, here in Newmarket, a designated growth area with a forecast 33,000 population in Yonge/Davis, we are offered trains every half hour at peak times and every hour outside peak. Why are we getting a poorer service than Aurora?

This is a question I put to Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca at a Town Hall in Aurora earlier this week, organized by local MPP Chris Ballard.

The enhanced GO Train schedule on the Barrie Line is, of course, terrific news but it is not a 15 minute service.

The Minister talks about “service concepts” and tells me the 70 GO Trains per week on the Barrie Line will increase to 200 within five years. This is a huge increase but it dodges the question.

Definition of the “core area”

If the 15 minute service is for the “core area” where can I find the definition of “core area” in the context of Regional Express Rail? Is the core area linked to projected future demand for train travel or, as suggested by Chris Ballard, is it something to do with the cost and difficulty of grade separations in Newmarket? I don’t know. In April Ballard tweeted:

@lynngr Enhanced service coming to Newmarket. Need time to build a number of crossings in Newmarket before 15 min. service possible, though.

2.41PM – 17 Apr 2015

Del Duca tells the audience to expect details from Metrolinx on the location of grade separations by the end of the year or shortly thereafter. This is fast work given that an update on capital projects given to the Metrolinx Board on 25 June 2015 reported that work on identifying the key rail and road separations on the Barrie line hasn’t yet started.

Where are the grade separations?

We need to know asap if there are going to be grade separations at Mulock Drive or Davis Drive (to name but two). And what about Green Lane? This major arterial road connects Newmarket with the 404. It seems inconceivable to me that a level crossing can survive at such a busy location.

We know from reports to the Metrolinx Board that the entire 60km long Barrie line is to be electrified. Land will presumably have to be acquired to accommodate the second track and to straighten out the line where it snakes. This in itself is a huge undertaking.

Reports to last month’s Metrolix Board tell me that a system wide environmental assessment will be completed by 2017 and that design, procurement and construction will take place over the period 2015-2024. Detailed design work is being done on the Union Station – East Gwillimbury section of the Barrie line as I tap this out.

The Regional Express Rail program is the answer to the congestion and gridlock that is choking the GTA. It is decades overdue and should be enthusiastically welcomed.

So I see the glass half full rather than half empty. But I still want to know why Aurora gets a 15 minute service and we in Newmarket don’t.

Metrolinx will be giving a presentation to Newmarket councillors in the Fall. Perhaps we shall find out then.

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For the Metrolinx reports that went to the Board on 25 June, click on documents in the panel top left and navigate to Metrolinx and open.

Details

Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 14 July 2015

It is 9.50am and I am in the Cane Room at Newmarket’s Council offices in Mulock Drive waiting for the big event of the day to start at 10am. The atmosphere is subdued like a dentist’s waiting room. We talk in hushed tones.

At the top table sit the members of the Compliance Audit Committee. The Chair, Ron Colucci, is a chartered professional accountant. On his right, Kelly Gravelle, a lawyer from Oshawa and on his left Paul Jones, a former Town Clerk in Whitby whose CV is impressive but his questioning – as I shall soon find out – is less so.

In front of me sits the huge bulk of John Blommesteyn dressed for the occasion in a dark blue suit. He asks the Chair if he can raise some points on procedure before the meeting gets under way. He wants to know why we can’t meet in the Council Chamber where the meeting can be live streamed. He says he doesn’t want to come across as aggressive.

Colucci, unnecessarily exasperated by this question, tells him we are staying put.

Now it is ten o’clock and the meeting stirs into life.

Where am I?

Colucci tells us this is the first meeting of the Compliance Audit Committee of the Town of….  He pauses.

“Where am I?” he asks.

Newmarket?

This is an inauspicious start but he recovers quickly. I learn that transparency and fairness will be the hallmark of today’s proceedings.

Blommesteyn says Taylor must have known

Now it is over to Blommestyn who, facing a time limit of 15 minutes to make his case, gallops along, swallowing and tripping over his words in his desire to get everything out in time. He is gratified that Taylor has very recently returned the $750 campaign donation to BionX but he asserts Taylor knew of the connection between Stronach and BionX years before he took the tainted money.

Blommesteyn points to page 11 of a slideshow presentation given by Taylor in 2010 which allegedly shows the relationship between Magna and BionX. Taylor then had a role with BionX Bikes.  Theatrically, Blommesteyn says this is the “smoking gun”.

Blommesteyn says all three companies under the microscope (BionX Canada, Magna International Ltd and Stronach Consulting Ltd) are located on the Magna campus in Aurora. They are there because they are all part of the Magna family.

He says that even though the details of the ownership of the various corporations may be obscure it is perfectly clear who was calling the shots. Frank Stronach wielded imperial power at Magna as his staggering $52 million bonus shows.

This could cost the Town $20,000

Now it is over to Taylor’s lawyer, Jack Siegel, who tells the Committee that Blommesteyn is asking them to initiate an audit process that could end up costing the Municipality up to $20,000. “A forensic audit from top to bottom would be a dramatic step.” And one he clearly considers unnecessary.

He takes us to section 256 of the Income Tax Act which defines “control” in terms of share ownership. No-one has a controlling interest in Magna which is a public company. Now he is going on about the Stronachs and their association with various entities. Now we are in the legal thicket of trust funds. Siegel tells us that because we hear the name Stronach repeated so often it can give rise to a “potential inference”. But that’s all it is.  If we look at BionX and the Stronach Consulting Group there is no “compelling evidence” of a link. He is now deep into legalese, doing what lawyers are paid to do.

Now Blommesteyn says Siegel has unwittingly proved his case for him. Blommesteyn  says he is not expected to be a lawyer or a tax expert and can’t be expected to explain all the relationships between the Stronach entities. That is precisely why a compliance audit is required. He predicts it would be like peeling an onion with ever more being revealed, layer after layer. He tells the Chair there is enough “evidence of smoke” for him to order an audit.

Control and shareholdings

Colucci the accountant is not convinced. “Control” is all about shareholdings as set out in the Income Tax Act.

Now we descend into a long and inconclusive discussion about “indirect control” which is referred to in that very same Act. Blommesteyn says this phrase also appears in the Municipal Handbook but no-one it seems can turn up the reference.

Blommesteyn cuts to the chase. “We should be concerned about corporations playing loosey goosey with campaign donation rules.”

He says corporations shouldn’t be making donations at all at the municipal level where candidates are desperate for money to pay for their campaigns. He paints himself as the little guy up against the corporate movers and shakers who buy influence by spraying donations over pliant politicians across York Region.

Death Stare

Suddenly I feel a chill on the back of my neck. It is 10.45am and I turn to see Maddie Di Muccio enter the room giving me one of her trademark death stares.

Now Mr Jones, the retired Town Clerk from Whitby and self proclaimed expert on all things municipal, asks Taylor how he reviews the campaign donations he receives. Do you review them before the money is deposited? Taylor says he tries to look at the donations as they come in but it is pretty messy. It is an election campaign after all. He gets a lot of donations but he doesn’t take money from developers.

The Chair is now wrapping things up. The Committee does not retire to consider their position. It is all over in a matter of seconds. Colucci states baldly that he is not going to be voting for an audit. His colleagues agree.

But we are told Mr Blommesteyn can appeal to the Courts.

We are now talking big money and, I suspect, that’s very unlikely to happen.

Nevertheless, Blommesteyn has, in his own bull-in-a-china-shop way, performed a public service by reminding us all that corporate donations to candidates for political office come with a health warning attached.

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Details

Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 13 July 2015

Last week Ontario Premier, Kathleen Wynne, abandoned her libel action against former PC Leader, Tim Hudak. They agreed it was time to bury the hatchet and move on.

Their jointly agreed statement says: 

“The lawsuit between us, and the comments that led to it, did not reflect our view that the other is in fact a great mother/father, an honourable person and a dedicated public servant.”

It is hard to imagine the fragile and notoriously litigious former Newmarket councillor, Maddie Di Muccio, saying anything remotely generous about regional councillor John Taylor. She hates him, perhaps even more so than her obsessive-compulsive husband, the always-angry John Blommesteyn. But in suing him for libel President Di Muccio is making a terrible error of judgement.

The Courts are generally loath to intervene in spats between politicians. The defamation bar is set very high indeed.

For his part, Blommesteyn is out to get Taylor for allegedly breaking the rules on campaign finance.

Picking over the entrails

Blommesteyn has asked for a campaign compliance audit of some of the contributions to Taylor’s 2014 election campaign. A meeting to pick over the entrails will be held at 10am tomorrow, Tuesday, 14 July 2015 at 395 Mulock Drive. You can read the paperwork here.

Blommesteyn asserts that Taylor may have contravened the Municipal Elections Act by accepting donations of $750 from three related companies with common ownership. Taylor’s Toronto lawyers put the allegations this way:

“The essence of Blommesteyn’s claim is that Taylor received $750.00 contributions from each of three corporations (namely BionX Canada Ltd., Magna International Ltd., and Stronach Consulting Ltd.) claimed by Blommesteyn, on the strength of a “news blog" of unstated or unknown authorship, to have common ownership.”

Taylor shoots Blommesteyn’s Fox

Taylor says he believed at the time that the three corporations listed above were not linked. But as soon as he became aware of Blommesteyn’s application for a campaign finance audit he, Taylor, started digging and found out there was indeed a connection between two of the three corporations. He immediately refunded the $750 campaign contribution to BionX Canada Ltd

In his evidence Blommesteyn draws attention to the 2014 Candidates’ Guide for Ontario Municipal and School Board Elections which states on page 15:

 “There is a $750 limit that applies to each person, corporation and union who contributes to your campaign.”

It goes on:

“If you accept contributions from corporations, you must determine whether the corporations are associated. Generally, corporations are associated if they are owned or controlled by the same person or persons… The contribution limits apply to associated corporations as if they were all a single corporation.”

Taylor’s lawyers address this head on, quoting case law which suggests that

“receiving illegal campaign contributions cannot sensibly be construed to contravene any provision of the Act…  if this were not so, a contributor could sabotage the election of a candidate merely by making an illegal donation. Consequently, the only obligation upon a candidate is to return the contravening contribution as soon as possible.”

Whatever form the truth eventually takes, Taylor’s decision to return the $750 campaign contribution will no doubt be heralded as a great victory by Blommesteyn.

Maybe Taylor was not as punctilious as he should have been in checking out whether the donor companies were associated.

But in the hurly burly of a campaign I am sure these slip-ups and oversights can happen. It seems implausible to me that Taylor would knowingly jeopardize his campaign for re-election for the sake of $750.

But others clearly take a different view. They believe Taylor would push his granny under a bus for $10.

Non compliance

Two years ago, one of Blommesteyn’s companies was dissolved for non-compliance by Corporations Canada. He set the company up on 22 September 2010 but, for whatever reason, the required annual filings for 7656092 Canada Inc were not submitted by the due date for 2011 and 2012 and, on 22 July 2013, the corporation was dissolved for non-compliance. I didn’t make a big song and dance about it at the time and brand Blommesteyn a lawbreaker because, then as now, I am prepared to believe there is a perfectly innocent explanation.

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To read the documentation in its entirety, open “Documents” in panel top left and navigate to Newmarket. Open “Compliance Audit: Blommesteyn and Taylor”.

You can see details of Blommesteyn’s corporation which was dissolved for non-compliance by navigating to “Correspondence” and opening “Non-compliance”

Details

Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 07 July 2015

Regional Councillor John Taylor has now filed a robust defence to Maddie Di Muccio’s ludicrous libel action in which she accuses him of making her “a target of ridicule, hatred and/or contempt of others”.

In a statement to the Era newspaper, Taylor reminds its readers that Di Muccio, the grandly titled President of York Region Taxpayers Coalition, used public money for partisan, political purposes.

In his defence, Taylor says he wholly rejects the statements he made to the Era are libelous. He says they are true - which is, of course, a complete defence. He says the fact that Di Muccio expensed the Town of Newmarket $1,225 for an ad attacking Tim Hudak after he disqualified her as a PC candidate in the last Provincial election was in violation of the Town’s policies.

Taylor goes on to brand Di Muccio’s libel suit as “frivolous and vexatious”.

“Since January 2015, Councillor Di Muccio and her husband have launched an integrity commissioner investigation against me as well as a campaign finance audit. They have taken the Era newspaper to small claims court, they have opened a police investigation on a former municipal candidate, they have served notice of libel to two former municipal candidates. Finally, Maddie Di Muccio recently tweeted that she enjoyed serving me for this action in Council chambers in front of staff and my peers (attached). These actions are all a matter of public record or have been published by the parties involved.”

Di Muccio could, of course, drop the action against Taylor but that would involve a huge loss of face which would not go down well in the world where she feels comfortable and most at home, namely cyberspace.

So what happens next? As I understand it, within 90 days the Small Claims Court will invite them to a Settlement Conference, chaired by a Judge but outside a courtroom setting, to see if they can resolve things. If not, then it goes to trial in open court.

There is not the remotest possibility of Di Muccio succeeding in her libel action against Taylor and winning her claim for $5,000 in damages to compensate for her hurt feelings. This demand for cash is risible.

She inhabits a world where smears and crude personal attacks are commonplace. It is her way of doing politics. This is fairly typical of her modus operandi:

@NwktTownHall Newmarkt council’s officially become a cesspool of failed provincial candidates: @_JohnTaylor, @ChristinaBisanz, @JaneTwinney

8.38pm – 11 Dec 14

Given the vitriol of her attacks on others, I find it astonishing that Di Muccio believes she has any chance of winning. But, clearly, she does.

She has convinced herself, m’lud, that she expresses honest opinions whereas others lie.

#Newmarket chambers isn’t a real courtroom. In a real courtroom, you have to prove that the lies you say about other people is true.

8.16 AM – 15 Jun 2015

She will have her day in court. And it will be delicious drama.

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You can read Taylor’s Defence by clicking “Documents” in the panel top left, opening “Correspondence” and navigating to “Di Muccio vs Taylor”.