Doug Holyday says he feels vindicated after a divisional court this week ruled the city had no right to reimburse two fellow Toronto councillors money they lost through election expense audits.
The Etobicoke Centre councillor says he'll try next month to have city council ask York West Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti and Scarborough Southwest Councillor Adrian Heaps to pay back the $139,000 they received."I think the taxpayers expect no less," Holyday said Tuesday after the court quashed a 2008 bylaw authorizing the payments."To correct the whole matter, they have to retrieve it." The court did not, however, order Mammoliti and Heaps to return the money, and the three-judge panel allowed Councillor Sandra Bussin's expenses in an ongoing defamation suit to stand.Mammoliti's lawyer, Peter Greene, said the ruling added up to victory for his client, since he does not think the councillor will have to repay the funds. "From his position, we won." Holyday disagreed. "The court clearly said this was totally improper," he said.Toronto City Council had voted to reimburse Heaps and Mammoliti - against the advice of city solicitor Anna Kinastowski - for money the councillors spent in their own defence when their 2006 election expenses were separately challenged.The city paid Mammoliti $52,081.37, plus $22,320.63 to cover resulting income tax. The same bylaw paid Heaps $45,330.40, plus $19,427.30 to cover taxes.Justices Katherine Swinton, David McCombs and Herman Wilton-Siegel said while the City of Toronto Act gives council the power to grant money "where there is a reasonable connection to the municipality's permitted objectives," there is nothing to show reimbursing the councillors was in the city's interests.Dr. Meyer Siemiatycki, a Ryerson University professor, had argued for the city that, if such reimbursement was impossible, the threat of significant legal and accounting fees "deters candidates of integrity but of modest means from running for municipal office."The court, however, found nothing in the bylaw or report showing council was motivated by those concerns.But it ruled council's decision last August to support Bussin covers expenses incurred in her capacity as a councillor. She has received $7,700.96 so far in an ongoing suit against the Ward 32 News publication.The court did secure a promise that if Bussin should succeed in collecting damages or costs, she would be required to repay city funds, adding, "it would be wise (for the council) to include such a condition in the future."Bussin was unavailable for comment this week, as were Mammoliti and Heaps.Holyday also sought to nullify a third bylaw, offering Heaps $36,000 last December to cover his expenses defending against a defamation suit from Michelle Berardinetti, his opponent in the 2006 election. Heaps refused the money, so court said the issue is moot.Greene said he hasn't spoken to Mammoliti, who is out of the country, but said the councillor will seek to recover court costs from Holyday, arguing Mammoliti should not have been involved in what was actually a fight between Holyday and the city.Holyday said he would seek to get his own court costs refunded. The councillor said he was disappointed by the decision on covering Bussin's expenses. "The sky could be the limit," he said.Holyday was supported in court by an intervenor, the Toronto Party for a Better City, who welcomed Monday's ruling but said it was only a partial victory for the city's taxpayers."The kinds of decisions that we have taken action against in court will continue to occur unless we get rid of the politicians who made these decisions," the group's president Stephen Thiele said in a press release.