A lobbyist with long, close ties to the premier says his firm called off its contract with a small Ontario town after councillors mused about leveraging the company’s Ford government connections to secure badly needed infrastructure funding.
On Monday, a majority on Brighton’s council voted to sign an up-to-six-month, $60,000 contract with Atlas Strategic Advisors. The municipality wanted to hire the firm led by Premier Doug Ford's former principal secretary to help it secure millions of dollars in provincial funding to upgrade its water treatment facility.
“Put plain and simple, it's a lobbyist to work the backroom,” Coun. Byron Faretis said at Brighton's council meeting on Monday. “That's what we are getting. We are not acquiring them for their technical expertise — we have J.L. Richards for that."
J.L. Richards is an engineering, architecture, and planning services company Brighton hired to help it upgrade its water treatment facility, as the province’s Ministry of the Environment has signalled it’ll require before new developments in the town can proceed.
During Brighton’s council meeting on Monday, Coun. Jeff Wheeldon acknowledged that Atlas is “very connected with this (provincial) government.”
“As much as it sometimes burns me that this government sometimes talks to its friends more than other folks, it might as well work for us from time to time,” Wheeldon continued.
“Hear, hear,” Brighton Mayor Brian Ostrander responded. “On so many levels.”
Amin Massoudi, who runs Atlas, has worked closely with Ford for most of the premier’s time in politics. He left his job as Ford’s principal secretary in late August 2022, but continued working closely with the premier’s office over the next year through a contract Atlas had with PC Caucus Services. The three other lobbyists who work for Atlas left either the premier’s office or a cabinet minister’s office within the last couple of years to work for the company.
Faretis also said his “only disappointment is that if one of them had been the former chief of staff to the premier, that would have really gotten us to the top of the list, but I guess you get what you get.”
After 15 minutes of debate, five of Brighton’s seven council members voted to approve the contract with Atlas.
Within hours of the meeting ending, some councillors were already expressing regret over its decision, The Trillium learned through conversations with most of its members.
The Brighton Community Gazette first reported on council's decision and members' comments early on Tuesday. Soon after, the town's mayor took issue with the newsletter's reporting on social media, referring to it as the "Brighton Gaz.-lighter" and sarcastically calling its coverage "another excellent, one-sided report" in a Facebook comment.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, council members discussed among themselves and with municipal staff if — and how — the decision could be undone.
The municipality hasn't registered a lobbyist on Ontario's lobbyists registry before. The plan to hire consultant-lobbying help to secure funding to upgrade Brighton’s water treatment facility was hatched by staff under the town’s previous top bureaucrat, who retired days before Atlas submitted its proposal to the town on April 9.
Leslie Whiteman, the town’s director of public works and infrastructure, told councillors on Monday that municipal staff interviewed two other companies but thought Atlas “would be able to present the municipality in the best light.”
Brighton council members were notified within the days before Monday's council meeting that they'd be discussing whether to hire a lobbying firm to help them secure funding through the province's new Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund, which the municipality applied for before its April 19 deadline. Three councillors The Trillium spoke to on Wednesday said they knew little about Atlas before the meeting, nor were they aware of which other consulting companies were considered by staff.
Wheeldon, who spoke in favour of contracting the company before voting for it on Monday, said he began to question whether he made the right decision when he began researching Atlas after the meeting.
"So I felt like, oh shoot, did I make a mistake? I felt like, can I undo that? But undoing it would look worse, and probably draw more attention, and maybe hurt our chances of actually getting this (funding) — and (with) people this well-connected, well that's a double-edged sword," Wheeldon said.
Coun. Anne Butwell was the lone Brighton councillor who voted against the contract with Atlas. "It just wasn't particularly sitting well with me that we would be spending taxpayer money to hire people to do the types of things that we are potentially able to do ourselves," Butwell said.
"If I could vote now, it'd be a full 'no,'" said Coun. Bobbi Wright, who abstained from the vote on Monday, given the limited information she had.
When Ostrander, Brighton's mayor, spoke to The Trillium on Wednesday evening, he said the municipality's plan was still to "move forward together" with Atlas.
"I think it's the way to get things done in Ontario, period," Ostrander said of the municipality's rare step to hire lobbying support.
"I really do think this is just the way of the world and, you know, if staff see this as a necessity in order to move this application forward, I really trust their acumen," added the mayor.
In an email at 9:15 p.m. on Wednesday evening, Massoudi told The Trillium, “Last month, we responded to what we understood was a competitive process to secure a consulting firm that would support ongoing priorities on behalf of the Municipality of Brighton.”
“Given recent developments, we notified the Municipality earlier this afternoon that we will not be proceeding further with this engagement,” Massoudi said.
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