For Bradford’s mayor, rejection has probably never felt so sweet.
The Joint Compliance Audit Committee unanimously rejected the complaint from past mayoral candidate Mauro Di Giovanni against Bradford West Gwillimbury Mayor James Leduc during the committee meeting at the Simcoe County Administration Centre in Midhurst on Thursday morning, June 29.
Leduc said he felt relieved “but I had no doubt that we had done everything right. Jackie White, my CFO, handled my file with me and we were right down to the penny. We made sure our ‘t’s were crossed and our ‘i’s were dotted. We thought we had a strong case.”
Di Giovanni’s May 26 application cited two areas of concern with Leduc’s mayoral campaign during the 2022 municipal election, and in the first, Di Giovanni alleged that Leduc had exceeded the maximum allowable campaign expenses of $32,690.60, and misreported expenses totalling $32,683.90.
Di Giovanni initially claimed Leduc’s advertising expenses didn’t add up; however, at the beginning of the meeting, he withdrew that complaint from his application, after Leduc submitted the receipts to Di Giovanni and the committee on June 26.
“When I reviewed those I noticed ... that those costs were reasonable. The way my campaign was, I had my flyers as one and my Canada Post as a second item or cost. I don’t have any issues with issue No 1, and obviously want to make that clear,” he said during the meeting.
The second complaint in Di Giovanni’s application took issue with the timing of campaign donations made to Leduc and other members of council by Asif Khan, the National Director Public Relations, Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama at Canada, the timing of council meetings that took place during the campaign and the decision by council on Sept. 20 to approve an Official Plan amendment and zoning bylaw amendment for 3999 10 Sideroad.
In his application, Di Giovanni claimed these actions could be in conflict with the Ontario Municipal Act.
“An audit is not just numbers one and two add up to three, but also the circumstances of funds and whether there’s questions or not. That is where my belief was for why it is part and parcel of the compliance audit,” he said during the meeting.
Peter Anderson, meeting chair, asked Di Giovanni for the specifics of how that issue would be a violation of municipal elections campaign financing rules.
“Well it comes to the donations. To me donations are part of your campaign and there are set amounts of who can donate, there’s rules around how much can be donated ... but the circumstances of the donations, it’s all part and parcel," said Di Giovanni.
"To make an analogy, I guess it would be, the bank may see the number as a number is a number, but if they see circumstances of that number, then they may have to draw in other agencies or personnel or experts to flesh that out and answer those questions,” Di Giovanni said.
Michael Binetti of Affleck Green McMurtry LLP Barristers, who represented Leduc at the meeting, disagreed with the assertion.
“I’ve tried to search and even play devil’s advocate, and I don’t see any potential contravention of this act that comes up in issue No. 2. There may be issues with other acts, but that’s not really the role of the committee,” he said during the meeting in reference to the committee’s responsibility to investigate violations and conflicts under the Municipal Elections Act, not the Ontario Municipal Act.
“The submission or the application doesn’t actually raise a potential contravention under this act, so if there’s no contravention of this act, then it can’t possibly be reasonable grounds,” Binetti said.
After deliberating in private for about 25 minutes, the committee agreed.
“The information provided in support of the balance of the application did not raise a reasonable probability that a breach of the campaign finance provision of the Municipal Elections Act 1996 has occurred,” Anderson said in rejecting the application.
After the meeting, Di Giovanni was respectful of the decision.
“It’s their finding. I followed the process and this is the result of the process and I accept that,” he said.
When asked if the application had anything to do with his campaign loss in 2022, Di Giovanni said he’s been keeping an eye on local politics for years.
“I guess it’s my history of wanting to do the right thing. That’s why I ran for council; I wanted to serve the public. To me, it’s all about process, following process, full disclosure and being transparent — that’s the way I am,” he said.
Leduc said prior to the meeting he was unaware of Di Giovanni’s intention to withdraw the first complaint.
“That was a surprise to us, but it made sense to withdraw it, because we had shown the paper work. I mean he could have asked me. I’m an open book. People want to know what I’ve got? It’s right there. I would be more than happy to show those records to people, so this was just a time-consuming expense to the taxpayer,” he said.
The concerns around the timing of council meetings also seemed odd to Leduc.
“This is my fifth term, I’ve been there through many elections, and you rely on the clerk to tell you when you’re in lame duck. It’s very clear in the act. Our clerk said that we were not in lame duck so we were good to go,” he said, adding he’s happy to see the application rejected and ready to get back to work.
Binetti expressed appreciation for the efforts of the committee.
“It reaffirms that this committee takes its role as a gatekeeper very seriously. They’re not just a rubber stamp, because ordering a compliance audit is a serious thing. It’s very disruptive and it’s costly,” he said.
