Mayor Miller won’t comment on lawsuit
Toronto Mayor David Miller won’t comment on a lawsuit that involves 23 of his political colleagues, but he does think elected officials at the city need better protection from frivolous lawsuits.
“Whether this is one of those or not, I’m not going to comment on because we’ve been sued,” Miller told reporters Monday. “I’m not going to comment about the details about it because the city’s being sued, and it would be wrong as mayor to comment about details given the lawsuit.”
The Toronto Party, which wants political parties allowed at the municipal level, launched a lawsuit on Christmas Eve and is suing 23 councillors who they say broke the law by reimbursing legal expenses two colleagues — Adrian Heaps and Giorgio Mammoliti — incurred as candidates, not councillors, in the last municipal election.
More recently, council also decided — against the advice of the city’s lawyer — to reimburse Heaps an additional $65,000 to pay his legal fees in a defamation suit stemming from the 2006 election in which Heaps issued an apology and paid $20,000 as a settlement.
The $20,000 settlement is included in the $65,000 council voted to give to Heaps.
The Toronto Party wants the two councillors to pay back the more than $150,000 they collectively were reimbursed defending their campaign financing, and they don’t want the city to give Heaps the additional $65,000 which has not been paid out yet.
While the Toronto Party acknowledged a need to protect elected officials from frivolous lawsuits, their case is completely different, said Stephen Thiele, president of the Toronto Party.
“Adrian Heaps wasn’t even a councillor,” he said. “Paying someone $65,000 to defend themselves in a defamation lawsuit when they were just Adrian Heaps the candidate, that’s not why we pay taxes.”
Councillors in Heaps of trouble
On too many occasions, Toronto Council is as dumb as a bag of hammers.
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