Toronto Computer Leasing Inquiry

Last updated

The Toronto Computer Leasing Inquiry was a judicial inquiry into allegations of conflict of interest, bribery and misappropriation of funds around computer leasing contracts entered into by the City of Toronto government in 1998 and 1999. It was held concurrently with the Toronto External Contracts Inquiry.

Contents

Background

On January 1, 1998, the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto and its six lower-tier cities (Toronto, Scarborough, North York, Etobicoke, East York and York) were amalgamated into the single "megacity" of Toronto. In one of the new city's first official acts of business, computer equipment was leased for city councillors' offices from MFP Financial Services, at a value of $1,093,731. City staff have not been able to produce any documentation to prove that this contract was awarded through proper procedures.

In May, 1999, the city issued a Request For Quotations for its new computer acquisition needs. MFP was one of the bidders, and was awarded the contract in July of that year. MFP was contracted to provide $43 million of computer equipment to the city on a three-year lease agreement. However, the final lease agreement was not signed until after the 90-day price guarantee had expired.

That fall, the city sold its owned computer equipment to MFP, and then leased it back as well.

Over the duration of the agreement, the city paid $85 million to MFP, rather than the original $43 million approved by city council. As well, many of the equipment schedules were for five-year leases rather than three. Some of these leases were later restructured to extend the lease terms even further, resulting in additional costs.

In December of that year, the city acquired 10,000 Oracle database licenses, again through an MFP lease. This turned out to be a serious overestimate of the city's actual needs.

These issues came to light in late 2001, after an investigation by Toronto city councillors David Miller and Bas Balkissoon. In February, 2002, the Toronto Computer Leasing Inquiry was established by city council. The commissioner of the inquiry is Madam Justice Denise Bellamy of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

The Inquiry

MFP's lead salesman on the city contract was Dash Domi, the brother of former Toronto Maple Leafs player Tie Domi. Much of the testimony presented to the inquiry alleged an improper financial relationship between Domi and former city councillor Tom Jakobek, the city's budget chief at the time of the contracts. [1]

The inquiry was presented with evidence that Jakobek's name, along with other city staff, was on the passenger manifest for a flight, paid for by MFP, to a Leafs game in Philadelphia. [2] For several weeks, witnesses testified that they could not recall whether Jakobek was actually on the flight, but Jakobek eventually admitted that he had been present, and apologized for lying under oath. [3]

Some of Jakobek's office staff have testified that Dash Domi was granted special access to Jakobek's office, although other staff members have denied this. [4]

The inquiry also investigated possible connections between a $25,000 withdrawal from Domi's bank account on November 1, 1999 and $21,000 in payments on Jakobek's credit card two days later. [5] Witnesses have testified that Domi called Jakobek and then parked for thirteen minutes in the underground parking garage at Toronto City Hall barely minutes after the bank withdrawal, although Jakobek has testified that he was not at city hall at all that day. [6]

Both Dash and Tie Domi testified that the $25,000 withdrawal was a birthday gift for Tie (whose birthday is on November 1), and Jakobek has testified that the $21,000 payment on his credit card came from his father-in-law, former Metro Toronto councillor Ken Morrish, to cover a family trip to Disney World. [7]

A forensic review of Jakobek's financial statements found that only a portion of the money actually came from Morrish, and the remainder in fact came from several family accounts Jakobek controlled, all of which had unexplained patterns of deposits in denominations of $100. This also included $11,000 from Jakobek's grandmother, who has a declared income of less than $15,000 per year. [8]

Members of Jakobek's family testified that the money they deposited in his bank accounts was connected to a real estate investment Jakobek and his brother Joseph made in the 1990s. Due to Joe Jakobek's financial circumstances, the money was being repaid to Tom Jakobek through an arrangement in which the brothers' parents made regular payments to Tom and were subsequently reimbursed by Joe whenever he could afford it. They have also testified that family members, including the grandmother, regularly kept unusually large amounts of money in their homes due to their mistrust of banks. [9]

Ontario Provincial Police launched an investigation in 2005 at the request of the City of Toronto. The OPP decided there are no reasonable grounds to lay any criminal charges.

Follow-up

On October 1, 2002, an additional inquiry was authorized to investigate a related matters regarding other city consulting contracts. The Toronto External Contracts Inquiry convened on October 18, 2004, after the Computer Leasing Inquiry ended.

Final Report

Justice Bellamy released her final report on September 12, 2005. She found that the testimony of Jakobek and Domi was not convincing. She made 241 specific recommendations, which included the following:

In a press conference the same afternoon, Miller (who was later elected the city's mayor) welcomed the findings, and indicated that he would refer the matter to the Ontario Provincial Police for further investigation.

In response to a recommendation that that Mayor report one year after the Inquiry's final report on the progress the City is making, Miller submitted a progress report in September 2006.

No Criminal Charges

On March 15, 2010, the Ontario Provincial Police announced that no criminal charges would be laid over the computer leasing scandal. [10]

Related Research Articles

The sponsorship scandal, AdScam or Sponsorgate, was a scandal in Canada that came as a result of a federal government "sponsorship program" in the province of Quebec involving the Liberal Party of Canada, which was in power from 1993 to 2006.

Tom Jakobek is a former member of the Toronto City Council. He was first elected to council in 1982 after first serving as a school trustee since 1980. He remained a city councillor until 2000.

The Toronto External Contracts Inquiry is a judicial inquiry into allegations of conflict of interest around contracts entered into by Toronto, Ontario's municipal government in 1998 and 1999.

Denise Bellamy is a Canadian judge best known for leading an inquiry into a corruption scandal in the City of Toronto government.

Anne Johnston was a Canadian politician and community activist. She was a longtime city councillor in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She was first elected to Toronto City Council in 1972, and served until 1985 when she ran against incumbent Mayor Art Eggleton, but was defeated. In 1988 she was elected to Metro Toronto Council. She served until Toronto was amalgamated into the megacity in 1997. That year, she was elected to the new Toronto City Council and served until 2003, when she was defeated by Karen Stintz. At the time of her defeat, she was the longest-serving and the oldest member of Toronto council.

Rob Ford Canadian politician, 64th Mayor of Toronto

Robert Bruce Ford was a Canadian politician and businessman who served as the 64th mayor of Toronto from 2010 to 2014. Before and after his term as mayor, Ford was a city councillor representing Ward 2 Etobicoke North. He was first elected to Toronto City Council in the 2000 Toronto municipal election, and was re-elected to his council seat twice.

Howard Moscoe is a former city councillor in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, representing Ward 15 in the western part of Eglinton-Lawrence. Among the most prominent and longest-serving councillors in the city, he is also known for an outspokenness which caused controversy at times. Moscoe is a member of the New Democratic Party. On August 31, 2010, after 31 years as an elected municipal politician, Moscoe announced his retirement from city council.

David Shiner (politician)

David Shiner was a city councillor in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He represented ward 24, one of the two wards in Willowdale.

Royal Commission of Inquiry on the Blood System in Canada Royal commission of inquiry into the tainted blood scandal in Canada

The tainted blood disaster, or the tainted blood scandal, was a Canadian public health crisis in the 1980s in which thousands of people were exposed to HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products. It became apparent that inadequately-screened blood, often coming from high-risk populations, was entering the system through blood transfusions. It is now considered to be the largest single (preventable) public health disaster in the history of Canada.

Rob Davis is a Canadian politician. He served on the York city council from 1991 to 1997, and was a member of the Toronto City Council from 1997 to 2000.

The Patti Starr affair, sometimes referred to as Pattigate or the Patti Starr scandal was a political controversy that affected the Ontario Liberal government between 1989 and 1990. Patti Starr was a fundraiser and supporter who made illegal political contributions through her role as head of a charity called the Toronto Section of the National Council of Jewish Women. Through her scheme she made $160,000 in contributions to Federal, Provincial, and Municipal politicians. In particular she contributed to Liberal campaign funds during the 1987 provincial election including those of some senior cabinet ministers. When the scheme was revealed it contributed to the downfall of the Liberal government in 1990. At the time it was one of the biggest political scandals in Ontario history.

Michael Di Biase is a Canadian politician who formerly part of the regional council of the city of Vaughan, Ontario as the deputy mayor and mayor. He was first elected to the city's council in 1986. Following the death of Mayor Lorna Jackson in 2002, Di Biase was appointed acting mayor by virtue of his position as senior regional councillor. In the 2003 municipal election, Di Biase won his first official term as mayor.

Betty Disero is a Canadian politician, currently the Lord Mayor of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. She is a former city councillor in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She was elected to the Toronto City Council in 1985, and served until her resignation in 2003. She moved to Niagara-on-the-Lake in 2009 and was first elected to town council in 2014, becoming Lord Mayor in 2018.

Jeffrey S. Lyons was a Toronto lawyer, lobbyist, and community activist.

André Marin

André Marin is a lawyer who served as Ontario ombudsman from 2005 to 2015.

David Miller (Canadian politician) 63rd mayor of Toronto

David Raymond Miller is a lawyer and politician who served as the 63rd mayor of Toronto from 2003 to 2010. Following his career in politics, Miller returned to law, before serving as president and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund Canada (WWF-Canada) from 2013 to 2017, after which he began working as the director of international diplomacy at C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group.

Bas Balkissoon Canadian politician

Bas Balkissoon is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 2005 to 2016 who represented the riding of Scarborough—Rouge River. From 1988 to 1997 he was a municipal councillor in Scarborough and from 1998 to 2005 he was a councillor in the amalgamated city of Toronto.

Algo Centre Mall Shopping mall in Ontario, Canada

The Algo Centre Mall was a mall and hotel located on Highway 108 in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada. It was the largest commercial complex in the area. When the community was hit by uranium mine closures in the 1990s, the complex gradually refocused, hosting multiple services, such as a library, constituency offices, and public health offices. In the years leading up to 2012, many businesses located in the mall either closed or moved to outside locations. Still, the mall was a community hub, with most of the area's clothing stores and its largest grocery store, employing upwards of 250 local residents. It accounted for 10% of the community's retail space and 6% of the total wages.

Timeline of Rob Ford video scandal

In May 2013, the American website Gawker and the Toronto Star reported that they had viewed a cellphone video that showed then-Mayor of Toronto Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine and commenting on political issues. Gawker raised money to buy the video, but were unable to acquire it when the seller broke off contact. On October 31, 2013, the Toronto Police Service announced that they were in possession of the video, "and at least one other". The video was retrieved in the course of an investigation of drug gangs, entitled "Project Traveller". Ford's associate Alexander "Sandro" Lisi was charged with extortion for attempting to retrieve the video, in exchange for marijuana.

References

  1. ↑ "Did Dash Domi give Tom Jakobek a $25,000 payoff? The evidence says he did", Toronto Star, 13 September 2005, B1; John Barber, "The mystery of Domi's disappearing windfall", Globe and Mail, 17 September 2005, M1; Peter Small, "MFP cast keeping low profile - 'It's time to get on with life'; Computer scandal harmed reputations - Domi, Jakobek now in real estate", Toronto Star, 7 August 2006, B1.
  2. ↑ James Rusk, "MFP had internal city data", Globe and Mail, 19 December 2002, A27.
  3. ↑ James Cowan, "Jakobek backtracks on letter: Shaken candidate tells inquiry he lied to his lawyer", National Post, 22 May 2003, A18.
  4. ↑ James Rusk, "Domi treated like VIP, Jakobek aide says", Globe and Mail, 2 September 2004, A10.
  5. ↑ James Cowan, "MFP scandal: City wants police to investigate ", National Post, 30 September 2005, A11; James Rusk, "The report that reads like a novel; Inspired by the 9/11 commission, Bellamy wrote the MFP story in narrative form", Globe and Mail, 27 December 2005, A11; "Did Dash Domi give Tom Jakobek a $25,000 payoff? The evidence says he did", Toronto Star, 13 September 2005, B1.
  6. ↑ Jim Coyle, "Judge eviscerates old civic guard", Toronto Star, 13 September 2005, A1.
  7. ↑ "Money screams, Dash whispers", Toronto Star, 21 April 2004, A1.
  8. ↑ "Did Dash Domi give Tom Jakobek a $25,000 payoff? The evidence says he did", Toronto Star, 13 September 2005, B1.
  9. ↑ James Cowan, "Jakobek's defence rests on a scrap of paper", National Post, 30 September 2004, A6.
  10. ↑ David Rider, "No charges in MFP scandal", Toronto Star, 15 March 2010
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.