Brampton councillor storms out of meeting, accuses Patrick Brown of ‘cover-up’ after investigation cancelled

Sparks flew at recent special council meeting in Brampton after Mayor Patrick Brown moved a successful motion to end an investigation into procurement practices at city hall.

Wards 3 and 4 Coun. Jeff Bowman stormed out of council chambers after Brown moved the motion during the Aug. 26 meeting to stop a nearly complete third-party investigation into four requests for proposals (RFP) and procurements and refer those matters to the integrity commissioner.

Brown moved the motion despite Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Paul Morrison telling council the findings and report were expected sometime this month, and City Clerk Peter Fay indicating the integrity commissioner doesn’t have jurisdiction over those kinds of investigations. The city had already spent more than $50,000 on the third-party investigation.

“We’re just going to throw away $50,000 plus (taxpayers money) away, hold this investigation off and any of its findings that might already be determined until after the election? So, any wrongdoing that might have been found during any of these RFP investigations, we’re just saying, ‘don’t even worry about it, not important, let’s hold the election first (and) vote everybody back in’. And then we’ll … send it to an integrity commissioner, who may not even be able to look at them,” Bowman told council.

“We’ve got Canada’s leading expert on procurement, who’s doing these RFPs, and we are saying to him, ‘no, we’d rather have an integrity commissioner look at them’. This is absurd, this is a 100 per cent, total cover up by this council of actions that have been taken during this term of office,” Bowman added before storming out of the council chambers.

After Bowman’s exit, Brown hastily called a vote on the motion and passed it without giving members of council a chance to object and moving on despite one councillor clearly trying to do so.

Council ordered the investigation in May and the unnamed investigator was probing four requests for proposal for legal risk assurance, the appointment of former integrity commissioner Muneeza Sheik, the now-defunct Municipal Development Corporation initiative, and procurement of COVID-19 supplies.

Sheikh’s contract was terminated earlier this year after some councillors raised concerns about fees exceeding $700,000. She has since launched a lawsuit against the city and five current and one former councillor over her dismissal.

Brown told the Brampton Guardian that he and a majority of council believe the procurement investigation is politically motivated and raised concerns that it was being overseen by a steering committee comprised of just three councillors.

“Our motion was clear. We don’t want council to be politically involved in investigations. The motion recognized that having a steering committee of councillors was inappropriate,” Brown told the Brampton Guardian.

“The majority of council felt it was more appropriate to use the established mechanisms to determine if any further review is necessary which is internal audit, integrity commissioner or ombudsman. Council shouldn’t be directing investigations. It should be the statutory officers responsible for it,” he added.

However, Brown raised those same concerns during council’s regular meeting on Aug. 10 and Morrison assured council that the steering committee — comprised of Bowman and councillors Gurpreet Dhillon and Pat Fortini — was not directly involved in the investigation beyond selecting the investigator and receiving updates.

Despite that, Coun. Rowena Santos, who supported Brown’s motion and acknowledged Morrison’s assurances, said she still felt a steering committee comprised of just three councillors raised questions.

“It’s unknown because they refused to have any other councillors who were interested to be involved. It is not transparent, no. It is questionable,” she said in an interview.

Bowman denied the steering committee interfered with or directed the investigation in any way and maintained his allegations of an attempted cover up.

“It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen,” he said in an interview. “I said my piece and I stand by exactly what I said in council. I think this is a massive cover up.”