Happy New Year, spectators!
I’m easing back into regular publication today with this one article.
Full disclosure: I had expected to spend this week poring over documents released by the CBRM in response to my 2015 FOIPOP request. I knew I wouldn’t receive all 890 pages Privacy Commissioner Tricia Ralph recommended I be given — 28 pages previously released with unnecessary redactions, 862 pages withheld entirely — but based on my communications with James Gogan of Breton Law Group, the external counsel hired by the CBRM to handle both my initial request and the response to the commissioner’s review, I believed I would have a substantial number of pages to get on with by early January.
Silly me.
On November 3, in response to Ralph’s review, Gogan sent me the timeline the CBRM intended to follow in releasing the information:
i) That information which is readily identifiable for release – on or before December 31, 2020; and
ii) That information which is undergoing a secondary legal review for determination of release – on or before January 30, 2021
On December 16, I received 14 pages of information by registered mail, Gogan’s document-delivery method of choice (although the FOIPOP request form allows the applicant to choose their preferred format for records and I had chosen electronic). Gogan told me I could expect “a further release of information on or before December 31, 2020.”
No such release of information materialized.
Which means Gogan took over a month to release 14 previously released pages or 0.2% of the documents to which I am entitled.
(Is he just toying with me? If so, I call it behavior most unbecoming of a Knight of Malta.)
However unsatisfying this process has been in terms of accessing information, there is a silver lining — it has generated the Spectator‘s first meme:
Source: Facebook.
I had to look up this cartoon and discovered it’s The Regular Show, and the main characters are “Mordecai — a sarcastic blue jay, and Rigby — a somewhat responsible raccoon.” I think it’s pretty clear I’m Mordecai, but I like to think Rigby, dear readers, is you.
[REDACTED]
Okay, so I did not receive the mother lode by any means, but what did I discover from the information newly un-redacted from these 14 documents?
Basically, Gogan un-redacted the names and email addresses he’d redacted initially on the grounds that they constituted personal information. But the Privacy Commissioner applied the test established by the Nova Scotia Supreme Court in 2000 and determined that the information the CBRM had redacted was not personal — all the individuals were “communicating in their professional capacity” and the information disclosed no personal details of the email senders or recipients.
In fact, the redacted information included the name of the former head of economic development for the municipality and the name and email address of the head of the Port Corporation. Yes, Gogan redacted John Whalley’s name and Marlene Usher’s name and Port of Sydney email address.
CBRM crest, former economic development manager John Whalley and McKeil Marine logo.
Gogan also redacted the name of Mike Moore, a consultant on the port file who, as was revealed during Whalley’s ultimately unsuccessful constructive dismissal suit against the municipality, was reporting directly to Mayor Cecil Clarke in violation of the Municipal Government Act (MGA). In fact, at the time I made my access to information request, Moore was apparently serving as business manager at the Port of Sydney — that’s according to what former CAO Michael Merritt said under oath during the Whalley trial. In 2017, Moore popped up as “regional manager of commercial interests for Heddle Marine Service’s East Division in Sydney”. (Long story, but the Coles Notes version is that Heddle Marine is connected to McKeil Marine, a company attracted to the Port of Sydney by Barry Sheehy. In 2015, the CBRM bought land in Sydport to lease to McKeil. Gogan represented both the buyer — CBRM — and the sellers — East Coast Metal Fabrication and Sydport Operations Inc — in the transaction. McKeil subsequently sub-let dock space to Heddle. The deal loomed large in the Whalley trial because Whalley felt it was illegal under the MGA.)
Gogan sometimes redacted Albert Barbusci’s gmail address (which appears on the Novaporte website) and sometimes did not.
Barry Sheehy’s email address was redacted throughout.
All information related to two employees of Dundee Capital Markets — an arm of Toronto-based investment firm Dundee Corporation — was redacted from the documents. Sheehy had CC’ed “mkraft@dundeecapitalmarkets.com” and “bcutsey@dundeecapitalmarkets.com” on emails containing articles about Egypt’s plans for widening the Suez Canal.
My best guess at “mkraft” is that it’s Michael Kraft, who ran the real estate group at Dundee Capital, leaving to join Hi-Rise Capital as CEO in 2016 before moving on to Echelon Wealth Partners where he now serves as managing director. As for “bcutsey,” I believe it must be Brad Cutsey, a former managing director at Dundee Securities Ltd who is now president of InterRent Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT).
I think their appearance is of interest only because Sheehy and Barbusci eventually partnered with another real estate investor, Montreal-based Jonathan Wener of Canderel, who came on board to develop the imaginary logistics park next to the imaginary container terminal (and who, as I reported back in October, seems to have left the building). The addition of real estate investors to the mix has always made my Spidey sense tingle — especially investors with no history of logistics park or port development.
Gogan redacted the names and email addresses of two Gabarus-ters — “jdanch” and “gabarusbay” — who were CC’ed on some of Sheehy’s communications. I believe the first must be “retired Mountie John Danch, the village’s justice of the peace” as he’s described in this 2013 Globe and Mail article about the fight to save the Gabarus seawall. Danch is mentioned in connection with stanch Sheehy defenders — and “Friends of Gabarus” directors — Gene Kersey and Tim Menk, who were leading the great seawall battle. The “gabarusbay” email is the contact email from the Friends of Gabarus website.
Seeing precisely what was redacted from this sad little handful of pages makes me marvel that an outside lawyer was actually paid to do this work.
And given the roasting the CBRM took for his original response to my request, I was curious to know why CBRM CAO Marie Wash had asked Gogan to handle the response to my appeal.
She promised me an answer.
As of press time, I had not received it.
REDACTED VERSION OF 14 PAGES:
Redacted_FOIPOP.14
UNREDACTED VERSION OF 14 PAGES:
FOIPOP_16Dec2021
