# The Greatest Employment Lawyer Canada Has Ever Seen

An episode of [Rose City Politics](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1247337855), 15 Apr 2024, 55 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/59479098/the_greatest_employment_lawyer_canada_has_ever_seen.mp3

Don, Jon, Frazier and Doug round up the latest employment news in this soft pilot of our new HR podcast. Rose City Politics is brought to with the kind support of LiUNA Local 625: Building Better Communities. Support the show at Patreon.com/RoseCityPolitics. Read our stuff in Biz X Magazine and online at BizXMagazine.com and RoseCityPolitics.ca

## Transcript

[0:24] Hey, everyone, Welcome to Rose City Politics. It is April fifteenth.
[0:28] Regular panel includes Doug Star, Tory Fraser Fathers, Don Merrifield Junior, and
[0:32] myself John Lidkey head to patrion dot com slash Rose City Politics. We are
[0:38] in Bizics magazine and be sure to like, share and subscribe if you are
[0:43] online and ros City Politics is able to broadcast live on tape thanks to the
[0:47] kind support of Luna six two five building Better Communities. Some housekeeping right off
[0:53] the bat, we are sorry that this is coming on a Monday. We
[0:57] had a plan to do this last Thursday, which turned out we did to
[1:00] do it on Sunday night. It just it fell apart. We wanted to
[1:07] present this story as big as possible, but I think that our aspirations were
[1:11] too big itself. But we're excited to dive into just one topic today,
[1:17] and it is, of course, the one that is still on everyone's mind,
[1:21] the one point five five million dollar wrongful dismissal lawsuit by former city engineer
[1:29] Chris Nepsy, who was turfed last November by Mayor Dilkins, who used his
[1:34] strong mare powers for the first time. Nepsy was hired in twenty one by
[1:38] then CEO Jason Rainer, who was then turfed out six months later. We'll
[1:42] get into what the allegations in the suit are just after this, but first
[1:49] we should note that Howard Levitt is representing mister Nepsy. Levitt is a senior
[1:53] partner at Levitt LP Law firm, well known, very public commentator on legal
[2:00] issues, describes himself on Twitter as Canada's best known and most quoted authority on
[2:07] employment law. As of today, the City of Windsor has still yet to
[2:12] file a statement of defense, but Mayor Dilkins has been very public that all
[2:17] of the allegations are wrong. The city will vigorously defend itself in court.
[2:23] Set a great quote. But we'll get to, of course, at some
[2:25] point during the show. But I'll say right now, as someone who practiced
[2:29] labor and employment law for a number of years before being elected mayor, I've
[2:32] never seen a former employee file a wrongful dismissial claim against their employer and sen
[2:37] chocolates and roses. They're always full of spurious allegations. Demera points for the
[2:43] reporter for not asking the follow up question, what is the number of years
[2:46] that would have been a good question, how many cases did you work on?
[2:51] Okay, So Nepsi has claimed a culture of corruption top down at city
[2:58] Hall, and let's get into what some of those allegations are. He says
[3:02] that there were five specific improprieties that he resisted participating in, and some of
[3:08] these are pretty juicy, folks. First one covering up the legacy Beacon streetcar
[3:14] costs. The second was to include a Ward five road project when it was
[3:21] not approved by council. The third was the cancel was the canceling of a
[3:27] council approved word to infrastructure project. The fourth wash was told to delay reports
[3:35] for the mayor's political advantage and that he had to be the one to take
[3:38] responsibility for those delays if asked publicly. And then the fifth one is like
[3:44] as as good as it gets with local politics, fixing parking tickets. Again
[3:52] the city has the mayor is saying there's nothing to any of this whatsoever.
[3:58] We are all still sort of in a wait and see right now for the
[4:02] city to file its statement of defense. But you know, we've we've talked
[4:09] about issues like this for such a long time on this show, from well
[4:13] before I showed up on the show. And here we are. It's it's
[4:17] it's laid out. It's really interesting. Can we just start with the statement
[4:21] of claim? So we got these five, five specific claims. I'm going
[4:27] to make an assumption and assume that there were more incidents than these five,
[4:32] that that the items could have been right, go ahead, Fraser, Yeah,
[4:36] So I think just take a step back and like the five statements of
[4:41] claim are the statements that he's making claims on through his lawyer, right right,
[4:46] right. And the key thing here I think is, you know,
[4:48] given that he hasn't hired Troy McClure or you know, what's his name from
[4:54] the symptences of Drawingel lionel huts right, you know, like he has a
[4:57] reputable firm from Toronto, Troy mcclar blade, whatever, you know. Like,
[5:02] but like, given that he's hired, you know, this reputable firm
[5:05] from Toronto, these are likely And because these are the claims that are made
[5:10] publicly, these are the claims that in all likelihood there's some sort of evidence
[5:14] backed up. He had to show a lawyer, like I have an email,
[5:16] I have a thing that like that you know, gives those ground.
[5:21] I agree, we've all heard the hearsay in the city about you know,
[5:26] whether it's Roberts or why Jason Rainer was let go, or you know,
[5:30] any other project or shenanigans that have occurred to other counselors. But like,
[5:35] these are the claims that at least there's evidence that that lawyer feels their standing
[5:42] to then move a case forward, right, And and yeah, I agree
[5:46] with you, I think like also, I think that these five claims were
[5:49] chosen as part of a legal strategy, like to your point. And the
[5:55] reason that I bring that up is that I think that these a number of
[5:59] these claims are politically explosive and windsor in a number of different directions. And
[6:05] particularly claim five relating to fixing parking tickets for Francis and Maryanni, that's a
[6:14] really interesting one because it's got nothing to do with Through Dilkins. And so
[6:18] I think that there's there's a natural tendency for us to be like this is
[6:24] this lawsuit is about Drew Dilkins. I certainly think that there's a lot of
[6:30] political freight for Drew Dilkins in this statement of claim, and there would be
[6:33] in a potential lawsuit. But this is a lawsuit against the City of Windsor,
[6:38] right, and so, like what I think just looking at it through
[6:42] my no legal training lens, and I look at these five items, and
[6:46] I think, what if these items were selected as a supported by evidence.
[6:50] It's good point, Frazer, that's probably the case. But also be as
[6:58] the items that you show that are the most likely to get your client to
[7:02] take or your opponent to take this seriously and settle out of court. No,
[7:06] that's absolutely what this is. Is you know, any dream that anyone
[7:11] has of this going to trial, and they're being full discovery, like,
[7:14] please check your expectations of the door. Well, because there's a there is
[7:17] the there's the threat of like there's the shadow of a threat to Fred Francis's
[7:24] promising political career. Well and right, but beyond that, like you got
[7:28] to so again, I'm zooming out right. So, the city has between
[7:30] thirty and ninety days, depending on the court and depending on the proceedings,
[7:33] to respond. They can also ask for an extension. So best case,
[7:38] fastest scenario, we're not hearing about the city's response probably until middle of May.
[7:44] Right, worst case is probably dropping sometime in the summer, and maybe
[7:47] the city's just really busy and wants to leave the empsy waiting with billable hours
[7:53] on the lawyer, and they ask for another ninety days because they have to
[7:56] go through thousands of emails and hundreds of reports that he would viewed in order
[8:01] to build their case against him. So I think, and that's what they're
[8:05] going to do. They're going to build a case against him to character assassin
[8:09] this person. He will never work in this field again. That is what's
[8:11] going to happen, I would say, because he was let go, Yes,
[8:16] that Drew Dilkins, but the mayor even said at the time when both
[8:18] he and I believe it was the city solicitor was also let go at the
[8:20] same time. He talked to all members of council at that point and it
[8:24] was a unanimous discussion and decision about letting those two seniors leaders go as a
[8:30] part of restructuring. And so I would imagine that as a part of the
[8:35] eventual statement acclaim, there's going to be statements from every councilor issuing like what
[8:39] was their issue with mister Dempsey at the time of his dismissal, Because as
[8:48] we understand it right now and has been reported to the media, all of
[8:50] councils supported this reorganization of the city at that time. If you google how
[8:56] long it takes to get a court date for employment law, it's three plus
[9:01] years in Toronto. This will not end up in court before the next election,
[9:05] so all the city has to do is run the clock and settle sometime
[9:11] next fall or winter out of court and this all goes away. Now doesn't
[9:16] take away the impact of the claims, but I think for those who are
[9:20] expecting ongoing political fireworks, and certainly there's probably gonna be some because you know,
[9:26] I suspect foyas are being filed by various media organizations and things like that,
[9:31] digging into particular claims. You're looking for specific emails or whatever that may
[9:35] or may not exist. At least I would hope media is doing that,
[9:41] But I you know, I think people have to just be mindful of the
[9:43] expectations of where this is going to go beyond We're going to talk about this
[9:48] a lot today and then we might not hear anything about this for another six
[9:52] months. Is very much a possibility in this space. So the people in
[9:56] the next election who will be running for mayor and know who that is yet
[10:01] or even just running again. Excuse me. I've been taking zertec for about
[10:05] two weeks now. So you said this was a unanum's decision that closed door,
[10:11] closed council meeting. No it wasn't. It wasn't that. It was
[10:13] the mayor talked to each member of council about the restructuring and they all agreed
[10:18] with the restruction. That's what was said on Am eight hundred. The restructions
[10:20] very different. Then we're going to fire that guy. Well no, they
[10:24] sad specific names, and there was, as I understand it, in camera
[10:26] meeting, but it wasn't. Again, the mayor has to make the decision
[10:28] now under strong leader powers, whereas under previously with Jason Rainer and Joe Roberts
[10:33] or Phil Roberts. Sorry it was you know, there was a meeting of
[10:37] council where they had to vote on it. So what I'm getting at is,
[10:41] with another election coming up, they're all going to have to give a
[10:45] statement on this situation at some point. It potentially, if it ends up
[10:48] going that far, how many of them are gonna turn and say, no,
[10:52] I had nothing to do with this, and I didn't agree with this.
[10:56] I would suspect if this wasn't political. Everybody would just playballerbody just say
[11:01] whatever they have to say. But I think when an election come up,
[11:03] there's gonna be some counselors. And if some counselors are running for mayor,
[11:07] especially against Fred, if he's you know, everybody kind of thinks he's gonna
[11:09] be running, this is a perfect opportunity to say I was in that meeting
[11:13] and I strongly opposed this, and I was this was basically forced upon me,
[11:18] and this is the kind of bullshit I'm gonna fight against it. The
[11:20] problem with that is this is now a legal case, and they are all
[11:24] directors of the corporation. Sure, so, you know, in theory they
[11:28] could. But in theory there's also probably something. You know, there's some
[11:33] record of that in camera meeting, there's some record of those meetings between the
[11:37] mayor and I agree, But I don't think I would find it very hard
[11:39] to believe that each one of those counselors went through the paperwork and whatever and
[11:43] came to this decision on their own. I think there's a lot of counselors
[11:48] who just did whatever they were told to do. Well, let me just
[11:50] jump in here. The first Winsor Star story about this discusses asking Hager's dismissal,
[11:58] which was at the same time, and it's that that was a result
[12:01] of the organizational restructuring, but according to the mayoral decision, Nepsy's was not,
[12:07] and in fact, at the time, the mayor was doing some radio
[12:11] interviews according to the story as well, saying that that quote indicated mister Nepsy
[12:18] was an incompetent employee. During the radio show following the engineer's dismissal, he
[12:24] said that out loud, Windsor Star is reporting with that out quite quite interesting.
[12:28] So so I think, like, I think that that was a good
[12:33] Also one quick section. They also say that after the termination, Nepsy received
[12:39] text messages of his office that had been outlined with a yellow caution tape blocking
[12:45] people off so as to make it look like it was a crime scene.
[12:46] Yeah, huh, remember that whole thing, and the wind Star I'd like
[12:52] caution tape taped up all the locks because you know, obviously they were,
[12:56] you know, trafficking children out of those offices or something not addressing that,
[13:01] so they look like they're actually trafficking. So so I think we did a
[13:05] pretty good job here of of the kind of the top level analysis that you
[13:11] know, what's happening today, what's likely to happen in the next little while.
[13:16] I want to talk a little bit about the about the politics of it,
[13:18] Like if you guys will indulge me, I want to talk about the
[13:20] political and politics I know, but but you do something so great because it
[13:26] is really interesting to me. So we have a situation and and and just
[13:30] to deal with the issue itself. Like I don't know if these specific claims
[13:35] are true. I have no certain knowledge, but like this is the culture.
[13:39] Like and nobody who is familiar with the city of Windsor and the way
[13:41] the city of Windsor operates can credibly dispute that this is not the culture.
[13:46] So I think that that's you know, I think that that's something that is
[13:50] interesting to see. Like there's been noises made about this, There has been
[13:54] this is something that has been discussed quietly. It's been discussed loudly on this
[13:58] show. But it's not something that is out there. And now it's kind
[14:03] of out there. And the thing with this information, this isn't an allegation,
[14:07] This isn't I don't know some you know, some weird or obscure sexual
[14:11] thing that people can choose to believe or disbelieve. This is like like a
[14:16] thing where you look at it and the allegations just like, oh yeah,
[14:20] it sounds you know this this goes back to you know, the groundwork was
[14:24] laid with the deployment of ward funds in his first term, like incident after
[14:31] incident after incident. So my point is that there's you know, there is
[14:37] a I think that there is a perception out there that can be crystallized here,
[14:43] that can be crystallized and make a public perception and shift the public perception
[14:48] of the mayor. But a lot depends and you alluded to it, Frazer,
[14:52] I think a lot depends on where the rest of the council jumps.
[14:56] I think that's where that's where Dilkin's political fate can be decided. And there
[15:01] is so much self interest. I mean, if you know, you look
[15:07] around that table and most of those folks have been riding along Withdrew for eight
[15:11] years, you know, and it's really going to be hard to create distance
[15:18] here, really hard, and I think it's really hard to And to your
[15:22] point, Frazier, like you're you're kind of legally obligated not to make a
[15:26] football out of it, because because like you know, who wants to end
[15:31] up with an integrity commission or complain about the comments they made about the lawsuit?
[15:33] Right, So it's it's I don't know that we're going to see that
[15:39] kind of evolution coming from council. And so if not, there where and
[15:43] will it be effective? Well? I think I think I think it's all
[15:48] about runway, right, and people's perception of their future around that table,
[15:54] right, Like, if you are going to retire after this term, or
[15:58] you're going to step away after this term, you can do whatever the heck
[16:02] you want really, right, Like, it's really about people's perceptions of their
[16:07] political future in this context, or political legacy in this context. And I
[16:11] think again, like my gut feeling is this will never go to trial.
[16:17] This will be settled out of court. There'll be a confidentiality agreement signed.
[16:22] You know, he wanted one point five million, you know, the original
[16:25] settlement might have been, you know, whatever his buyout was originally. You
[16:27] know, maybe it settles around a million dollars or something like that, and
[16:30] they'll just be an in camera line in next year's capital budget. You know
[16:33] for one million dollars or whatever it is, because that's where that money shows
[16:37] up in the budget, and that's how it shows up in the budget is
[16:38] a number within camera next to it, and that's all that you know,
[16:44] at least from a public perspective. So I think depending on you could go
[16:48] through around the council table if you wanted to and say, well, who
[16:52] has current or future political aspirations? And we've done that before and I think
[16:56] we'll probably do it again in the near future. Like, so the question
[17:00] is like, is there you know, what's the solidarity of council going forward
[17:04] on this? Like I think they're gonna hold together because it's a legal case
[17:07] that they're bound to hold together on. Because they break on this, then
[17:11] are they gonna break on the Gray site? Right, because that's where there's
[17:15] actual political to gain, Like if you want to build housing, you were
[17:18] against the blocking of that project, like that's the one you leak information to,
[17:22] and like the amount of political and professional risk of breaking that sort of
[17:27] broader obligation to the board and the organization, like you might not be able
[17:33] to get re elected anymore because you're like actually breaking trust with the corporation so
[17:40] I don't think like the view that like, you know, oh, Fred
[17:44] Francis or someone else may you don't want to say like, oh I had
[17:47] thus to do with this. The what's gonna happen is they're gonna rally the
[17:51] horses, you know sort of, you know, rally together. They're gonna
[17:55] stand behind the litigation wall, and they're gonna settle this out of court.
[18:00] Yeah, I can see that happening. It's interesting, though, you were
[18:03] talking about the culture. All of us who have been paying attention to this
[18:07] for years now, we all know this is how things are happening down to
[18:11] the city. And it's interesting because the pushback's always been all the fake news.
[18:15] It's blah blah blah. CBC's bullshitting us ROAs city politics. We all
[18:19] know they hate us down there. It is nice to finally have something come
[18:23] out from real official people, like a lawyer, a very popular labor lawyer,
[18:30] to come out and say these are the accusations we're making. And like
[18:33] Fraser said the beginning, they're not saying this stuff just they're not picking stuff
[18:36] out of a hat. Mister Levitt's lawyer went through said okay, we got
[18:38] documentation or whatever proof for all these things. This is what we can go
[18:42] forward with. And if you go back to when the mayor was first elected,
[18:47] what was his first basically rallying called everybody of the council it's either get
[18:52] on the train or you're gonna get run over. And that's how he's run
[18:56] things from day one, and now it's finally all coming back to kind of
[19:00] bite him in the ass. Yeah, I'm not so like I take Fraser.
[19:04] I take your point about likely like sort of immediate consequences and like what
[19:11] the immediate result will be. But I really think that this news story and
[19:17] the response to it is permanently damaging to Drew Dilkins. And I think if
[19:26] he were running again, and I don't know if he is or not,
[19:29] if he were running again, this would make it pretty attractive to put your
[19:34] name up against Dilkins, absolutely, especially if you know that he can't say
[19:38] anything. Yeah, now in the kind well, so now let's take all
[19:44] this. Let's take all this and fast forward two years in the scenario where
[19:48] Drew Dilkins is running again just for fun, and let's follow the Fraser scenario.
[19:55] So this has been to court, it's done, it's been saddled.
[20:00] Nothing has been said since then. There's no constraint at that time on a
[20:04] on a city council colleague of the mayor, there's no legal constraint on them,
[20:10] Like the thing is done right, so you could presumably make hay about
[20:14] it. And I think that that if Dilkins were to run again, that
[20:17] they would like their opponent, his opponent, would make hay about this specific
[20:21] issue and and make it stick and make it hurt. And you can think
[20:25] of the ways that that you might do that. And I think you can
[20:30] see from dilkins response what his response has been so far, like he's got
[20:34] nothing nothing, Like you know what, what has the response been so far?
[20:40] I was a lawyer too, and it's all bullshit. They're right.
[20:48] I think that there's I think there's just no way out here like that,
[20:52] there's no way out here for Dilkins, like on the on the the fantasies
[20:56] of people that that you know that that he's you know, he's going to
[20:59] be humiliate, aided, tarred and feathered, run out of town on the
[21:00] rail by you know, and and there'll be all kinds of public celebrations Like
[21:06] I don't think that stuff is happening. But I also don't know if Drew
[21:08] Dilkins is winning another election. This really goes back to our show a few
[21:12] weeks ago, when we were talking we should tarn feather counselors when they do
[21:15] things wrong. Right now, that is a dawn opinion. At this moment,
[21:19] I was plenty of you because you said at that time you were referring
[21:25] to different circumstances. This is about allegations, and we need to be sure
[21:30] when discussing it as such a hypothetical tarring and feathering down. You can't be
[21:34] so cavalier about it. I guess that. So if we do settle this
[21:40] out of court and don't drag us out of this, if we do it,
[21:45] if the city does decide to settle out of court and we have meyor
[21:49] Dilkins here going, I will never apologize for doing the right thing. There
[21:53] is no corruption, none of that exists. These are all spurious allegations designed
[21:57] to try and embarrass I'm not embarrassed. I'm not embarrassed about anything that I've
[22:03] done at City Hall. But I do wonder how can you run on you
[22:08] know there's nothing wrong here? If you decide to go settle out a corner.
[22:12] Well, I think no settlement will happen until the statement of defense comes
[22:15] out, yea, and that statement of defense will be a complete character assassination,
[22:21] whether rightly or wrongly, of mister depsy. Right. And so what
[22:26] you'll then end up having is two narratives. Narrative one is engineer forced to
[22:32] do these things that I was uncomfortable with. Narrative two, based on what
[22:34] you just even said, which corrected my earlier position, is that he was
[22:38] incompetent. They're gonna list every time there's a typo in a council report,
[22:41] he's misspoke during a council meeting, he got an email or a recommendation wrong
[22:47] and then had to be corrected, and they're just gonna roll that out,
[22:51] and then the narrative will be, well, I fired the guy because he
[22:55] was incompetent. But then if we settle, though, isn't that recognizing,
[23:00] Like so this guy just shows up and bilks us out of one and a
[23:03] half million dollars, Well, and that we're gonna be given you know,
[23:08] you know who, you know who who's gonna be blamed Jason Rayner because he
[23:12] hired him. And this is and it goes back to then Drew saying,
[23:15] well, I got rid of Jason Rainer. I didn't like this nympsey,
[23:18] and then he can just gaslight. You can go back in time and you
[23:21] can reltigate that whole chain of events where you know, I got rid of
[23:25] Jason, he had already hired this incompetent guy. I got it, gave
[23:29] the guy a chance to shape up. OC tried to tell him to shape
[23:32] up, you know, and he did. We let him go. He
[23:36] sued us, We settled out of court. We're moving forward right like,
[23:38] there's your narrative right there. Now. Does is he permanently damaged as a
[23:42] relative? Yeah? But I again looking at the windsor political landscape, assuming
[23:48] he was to run again. Unless someone's gonna run on, I'm going to
[23:51] clean up city Hall as and if that is the rallying cry of the next
[23:56] election, which I don't know, if that's a winning rallying, well,
[23:59] you'd need to build a live you'd need to build like for that to be
[24:00] your good point, for that to be your campaign narrative, you need to
[24:04] build a lot of support for it, right exactly, So I hear what
[24:11] you're saying we're still in the Dilkins runs in twenty six scenario. If you're
[24:18] a if you're an opponent of Dilkins, what you're going to do is you're
[24:23] going to gather evidence. You're going to gather all kinds of evidence, and
[24:27] you're going to make You're not going to make the campaign about these allegations.
[24:32] You're going to make a campaign about new allegations. Right, And I think,
[24:36] like, like, nothing happens in a vacuum. Right, If there
[24:40] is no interested party expending energy on the other side, then Dilkins is he
[24:45] gets a black mark on his record and nothing happens, right, Like,
[24:48] That's that's what it is. Assuming that there is an opponent who has an
[24:52] interest in an ability to exploit the situation, then I think it's massively exploitable.
[25:00] But you have to be investing, and we've talked about this, you
[25:02] have to be the investing those resources. Now, well you have to yeah,
[25:06] yeah, yeah, in order for somebody to win, they have to
[25:07] want to win, yes, and so, but like but I even mean,
[25:11] like if you want to highlight what that next scandal is, well you
[25:12] have to file a FOYA and like that's going to take a year there's work
[25:18] to be done. I don't disagree with any of that. I don't think
[25:19] that this happens. I don't think this happens because somebody in January twenty six
[25:25] wakes up and says, you know what, I think I just had enough
[25:26] of that, Dilkin's fellow, that's no, of course, not if you're
[25:30] building the case now. Yes, absolutely, But I just don't think that.
[25:37] I think that it's that the truth is frazier. That we're in the
[25:41] situation that we're always in that what anything is possible because we control our own
[25:48] community. But what we tell ourselves and what we convince ourselves in the conversation
[25:53] we have with ourselves is what's going to make is what's actually going to make
[25:56] it happen. And the point I'm making is that like I understand like you
[26:02] that I don't think that there is going to be an immediate dramatic change in
[26:07] the circumstances or the setting of leadership and windsor because of this. I don't
[26:11] think so. But to think that this is not an incredible asset to use
[26:17] not just against Drew Dilkins, but against every single person around that council table
[26:22] in twenty twenty six I'd be surprised if changing the culture at City Hall wasn't
[26:26] a theme in the next election. I would be surprised because I think what
[26:32] you're going to see is I don't think this story is going to be in
[26:33] the headlines for the next one hundred and four weeks. But what I think
[26:38] is that this theme is going to keep coming back, and it's going to
[26:41] keep coming back if you project backwards, if you project this theme backwards over
[26:45] onto all the news of the last eight years, which is you would see
[26:51] the news through the lens that well, people who do this show and listen
[26:53] to this show see the lens through So I think that there is a very
[26:59] powerful impact on people's perceptions as possible, and if there is an interested party
[27:03] who's pushing, then really spectacular change could happen. There's only one voice around
[27:10] the table I think that could pull that off, and it's Fred Francis.
[27:12] Yeah, like, I can't see fob that's one. Fabio's not the voice
[27:15] that's going to come out fighting. He's going to be sunny ways justin Trudeau
[27:21] twenty fifteen. That's his personality. Now. If he does come out swinging
[27:26] wicked, we got ourselves an election. Fred could actually run on this be
[27:30] taken with credit. The response would be, but you were there, you
[27:33] were part of this, and he could go the culture is so much worse
[27:37] than anything that I realized over my years that I was there, and now
[27:41] that we're seeing the mayor's door swing open. Yeah. The challenge with that
[27:45] narrative is the person who was mayor before Drew Dilkitz. I think that's going
[27:49] to be a pretty like that. I know that Eddie Francis rode in to
[27:56] office on an anti corruption on a holy cow MFP so terrible, we need
[28:00] to blow this whole thing up. But I don't think that. I don't
[28:04] think Fred Francis could repeat that trick, as tempting as it might be,
[28:07] I don't think that's possible. It would certainly help with his fake narrative that
[28:11] him and Drew or hate each other. Now, I mean they've been doing
[28:12] that for aw up. It's not a conspiracy theory. It enough times,
[28:18] you know, So I don't know if he saw the article today. So
[28:22] former counselor bortal and had something on Twitter, and I read the article in
[28:25] the Windsor Star and they had quoted Jason Rainar in there as one of the
[28:30] people who told this guy that he had to change one of the projects,
[28:33] and I think it was the word five project that they were canceling in Ward
[28:37] two and moving at too Word five and that wasn't approved. Jason Rainard was
[28:41] playing ball with the mayor and still got fired. Saw that because my perception
[28:48] was Reinar got fired because he was a thorn in the mayor's side. That
[28:52] was just me, That's what I was thinking. And then you see if
[28:56] this is again it's all allegations, but it's true, it's all allegation.
[29:00] And if he was still trying to play ball and do the mayor's bidding for
[29:03] him and still got fired, the keyword has tried to play that and another
[29:07] thing with him. So the narrative we're talking about politically, you can now
[29:14] say, Okay, the mayor and the way he's run things are now gonna
[29:18] cost us. Let's just say it's a million five for this guy fired the
[29:22] retired the police chief. We've been paying her one hundred and ninety five thousand
[29:26] dollars. The Sunshine List just came out for I think the rest of her
[29:27] six year contract. Rain I are still getting paid. He didn't go away
[29:32] and he's collecting. UI. How many millions of dollars are we paying every
[29:34] year because of the mayor's inability to if you believe these allegations, do things
[29:41] legally and properly or just he has a personality down there. If you don't
[29:45] do things by way, I'm going to fire you. He doesn't care how
[29:48] much it costs the tax payers. We're at like five six million dollars.
[29:51] I think we need to put a line though of like, everything that happened
[29:55] before the strong mayor's power came in was counsel approved and the culture could have
[30:00] brought it to where it is, but it was a different time than now
[30:03] where he gets to wear every single decision. And I think that's an important
[30:07] dilution. Well, I mean for the counselors. All those counselors are there
[30:10] for this. I mean again, we're talking millions of dollars that is costing
[30:12] the city by just random ten the city could win the case, well,
[30:18] no, they could, but they pay now for a third of this amount.
[30:19] Early are the police chiefs getting almost two hundred grand a year, So
[30:22] that's four years. It's a policeport decision. That's not a city council.
[30:26] It's all the same people, Rainar. We don't know how much that is
[30:29] because it's an HR issue. We don't hear anything about there was that other
[30:32] person who was fired Like this, every time they fire someone, it's costing
[30:36] the city money. And if they're doing this just because the mayor doesn't like
[30:40] them or city council doesn't like them, not that they're not doing their job,
[30:44] that's an easy political attack to go after. The mister fiscal responsibility is
[30:48] costing us hundreds of thousands of dollars every year just because he doesn't like people.
[30:52] Yeah, but but I mean maybe he could flip it around and spin
[30:56] it is a This is a humane new Paul. See. We used to
[31:00] torture people by sending them to Roseland, but now we just take them out
[31:04] and shoot him. It's so much better give him a paycheck and send him
[31:08] on their way. I'm trying to think of the Gladiator line where it's what's
[31:15] his face that he was nice? Now with that they call him forget it
[31:19] good? Oh my god, No, that's the best one you've ever sent
[31:23] me. I'm thinking about airline. So this is what it's like. This
[31:27] is what it's like when where Grandpa don is babysitting right the football is on.
[31:33] Don't don't ask me to explain that, Babe Maximus the merciful, wasn't
[31:37] that or was it? Oh my god, save us John. It is
[31:44] pretty remarkable how this is a hand grenade really tossed right in the middle of
[31:48] city council though, looking at everyone that's implicated in this. Again, we
[31:52] don't know if it's true or not, but just from what we're being presented
[31:55] with Mayor Dilkins, Ed Sleeman, Angelo marrin Ya, Fred Francis, and
[32:01] then the aggrieved party Fabio Costante, it's basically fifty percent of our council.
[32:06] Yep. Like Fabio walks away looking okay here because he can just say,
[32:13] well, I did my best, but what Ed really just said? Ed
[32:16] just took the grift. Basically, he didn't do anything. He said that
[32:21] nothing improper happened whatsoever. I also, I think this is really there's a
[32:24] long interview. Actually I thought that the Windsor star Piece I didn't read the
[32:29] other ones, but the Windsor star Piece or is that the I thought it
[32:32] was quite good. I'm sorry it's CBC it's Dolson Chen and CBC. This
[32:38] is quite a long, quite a long discussion, and I think that mister
[32:44] Sleeman's words are in there pretty much unedited, and I think it's well done.
[32:47] You can really like leads the reader to draw their own conclusions. Well,
[32:52] yeah, he was quoted as saying to the Star Sleeman, when an
[32:53] issue comes in, whether the mayor's initiative or anybody else, I always look
[32:57] at that initiative. I look at what we are dealing with on it own
[33:00] merit. I don't look at did the mayor support it or not. I
[33:02] don't really look at it that way. I'm going to take this just a
[33:07] little bit to a different point right now. But the idea, the whole
[33:10] thing that happened here with Sleeman and Erskine Street and not being a city street
[33:16] for decades until Ed Sleeman shows up and he's like, actually, I'm pretty
[33:22] sure that this is ours. What are we doing? Why isn't it being
[33:25] they said for decades there was no road maintenance, there was no paving of
[33:31] it whatsoever. How do you lose as did they like send insulting letters not
[33:37] getting us to try to I guarantee are their parking meters on Erskin Street.
[33:45] Those got emptied. So yeah, this story has you know, touched a
[33:52] lot of different people. That's not a great phrasing. We have Fred Francis
[33:57] commenting publicly on it. We have Fabio Coastante going, I'm gonna comment on
[34:01] this thing. I'm a lawyer, it's before the courts. You got Drew
[34:05] Dilkins going, I'm the top employment lawyer that Canada has ever seen. I'm
[34:07] gonna just start an August. We're seeing such inflicting strategies in public as to
[34:15] like what people ken or can't say, and I just I find that to
[34:19] be truly remarkable that they can't even align themselves on it. And that's why
[34:22] I think going against Fraser your point, like there are fractures here, like
[34:27] if everyone's taking their own strategy on this one, and it goes to what
[34:30] you were talking about with the Grace site, right, they're all looking for
[34:34] their own political survival to a certain extent here. So I don't know that.
[34:37] Well, it's funny. It's a you know, we just said it's
[34:38] a lock lawsuit against the city, but the mayor's out there saying it wasn't
[34:44] me, it wasn't me. It wasn't me, So he wasn't saying,
[34:45] oh, it wasn't the city. We've done everything right since you know I
[34:47] didn't do this, I run a tight ship. He's taking this very personal,
[34:52] So would we expect anything less? Well, no, And that's but
[34:55] that's that just plays right into the narrative of this whole situation. Yeah,
[35:00] And I think the problem and I think that's an X factor to Frazer laid
[35:05] out a scenario that I think is well thought out and very likely, like
[35:10] the likely scenario, But I think there is an X factor, and that's
[35:14] Drew Dilkins, the man, the person. Like settling is the smart thing
[35:20] to do here, But but well, I think that that might be a
[35:27] difficult thing for Drew Dilkins to do in these circumstances, right, I mean,
[35:30] like, look like and if settling this lawsuit, you can say what
[35:37] you want is to protect Drew Dilkins, if they settle this lawsuit, if
[35:40] they are so convinced that they are right about this, like with so many
[35:45] people's reputations to the point you made, John, so many people's reputations being
[35:50] besmirched, Like it's not just like I'm sure that the people of Windsor would
[35:54] understand that it might not be the financially optimal choice, but that we need
[35:59] to we need to defend the honor of our elected officials and that that they
[36:02] need their day in court. Right. I I just think that, I
[36:09] just think that it's really going to be a difficult thing because settling this case
[36:15] is tantamount to saying there is truth in these allegations. Right, That's my
[36:20] point. That's that's the bottom line, and that is what the public perception
[36:23] will be. Andrew Dilkinson knows that, and that has to be that's away
[36:25] when that has to be a factor, That's all I'm saying. Yeah,
[36:29] that's always the assumption anytime a case is settled out of court. The assumption
[36:31] is, especially if there's an NDA, and there'll be an NDA, is
[36:35] yeah, it was true. They just want it to come up public.
[36:37] This is not a private business where I can make stupid decisions. If you
[36:44] settle the parking list, parking ticket thing is specifically true, But like a
[36:52] private business can decide to settle for whatever reason if they they see that the
[36:57] presses poor. I don't want to go spending too much more. Right,
[37:01] there's there's lots of reasons, but the city is not a private business with
[37:06] one shareholder that can act in that way. They have to act in the
[37:08] best responsibility for all taskpayers. We will spend eight million dollars on the trolley
[37:14] garage for the trolley that doesn't even move. We are willing to spend on
[37:16] important things. My friend, there is that thirteen million dollars. Yeah,
[37:22] not to this case. Who knows how much. So I think it would
[37:27] be remiss for us not to discuss our former former CEO. And Orio Calucci
[37:35] once returned when he allegedly called all of this the Windsor Way, and he
[37:43] said the suit describes nepsy being told by the former CEO to quote focus on
[37:49] appeasing the mayor and the mayor's supporters. That distinction there is very interesting to
[37:55] me. Yeah, you think that means the supporters on council. No,
[38:01] No, this is it's juicy. But I am worried. We'll know when
[38:07] we find out who's building that roseland condo, then we'll know who his supporters
[38:09] are. Allegedly, according to Don Maryfield, I am worried though that this
[38:16] will definitely be something that just gets memory hold. It could be You know
[38:22] what, could everybody just state their name for the benefit of any legal clerks
[38:27] listening, so we can clarify which person goes with which voice. I've been
[38:31] down this road. So here we go on the count of three. Jan
[38:40] Mackenzie, I don't know where do we go with this one? Now?
[38:45] Frazer take the wheel. Gee, thanks John. I think again. As
[38:52] we said, we've heard rumblings of this for a long time, and we've
[38:55] seen you know, I worked in the nonprofit sector and my old boss got
[39:00] emails from the CEO and from the mayor's office when we were doing community research
[39:05] and talked about stuff on the radio about issues the city didn't want to have
[39:09] in the light of day like this is not a new phenomenon for the city.
[39:15] I think, you know, I think about the what ifs, and
[39:21] so I have another podcast where I talked to councilors and mayors from across southern
[39:24] Ontario. A couple of weeks ago, I had Councilor Morgan Halpern on War
[39:29] two, councilor from Central Elgon. If you don't know where Central Elegan is,
[39:31] it's Port Stanley. Plus the rural area is sort of surrounding Saint Thomas.
[39:36] The new battery plant is the Volkswagen battery plant is going to be built
[39:39] in Saint Thomas on land that was annexed forcefully by the province to Saint Thomas
[39:44] from Central Elgin and they're trying to figure out that whole thing. But Central
[39:49] Elgin had three high level municipal officials from min recollection leave in the first six
[39:53] months of their new council term. The previous council turned over the entire council
[39:59] and mayor, so you had a brand new council come in and what ended
[40:04] up happening was those when those administrators left, there was quiet accusations of you
[40:09] know, bullying and misappropriation from council to those senior administrators, and that was
[40:15] alleged. Well Counselor helpern file Da foya on the Mayor and her own council
[40:22] colleagues got took those responses and gave it to the Integrity Commissioner. Right,
[40:28] if this has been a culture for more than a decade in the city,
[40:31] then someone around council needs to have the fucking balls to stand up for what's
[40:36] right in the city. If you're more interested in your own political future.
[40:39] You know, and this is what councilor from my understand, what counseil Mara
[40:43] did with the MFP or whatever the scandal was in the early two thousands,
[40:45] right like there was you know, he got handed stuff, he took personal
[40:51] and political risk, and he brought it to the light of day. Right,
[40:54] there are mechanisms where council solidarity. If administrators are being bullied, you
[41:00] could go and bring that delight of day. And you know File and Integrity
[41:05] Commissioner complained against your colleagues. Sure you're playing politics. But if this is
[41:08] happening in a town where there's six counselors and a mayor and like a total
[41:13] of like ten thousand people, like the smallest of small p politic towns,
[41:17] where like people know each other's brothers and mothers and things like that, they're
[41:22] doing the right thing. Then I look around that council table and I'm wondering,
[41:25] why hasn't someone done the right thing before? Now, Okay, so
[41:29] I take your point. However, I think that you can't say that there
[41:35] weren't counselors who were specifically calling out this specific issue over the last I agree
[41:40] that there were there were loudly in as many different ways as they could think
[41:45] of. And the problem is that there was just not a public appetite for
[41:51] that, like and and so what the point I'm making is, I just
[41:55] don't think it's fair to say that nobody has done this. It's been done.
[42:00] Nobody has done it at a time when the public was receptive or maybe
[42:05] they you know, you didn't like their tactics or whatever, whatever, whatever.
[42:07] But to say that it hasn't been done is it's not true? Okay,
[42:10] yeah, so I think, but I think I think there's a difference
[42:14] between going to the media and willing to bat around innuendo. This council filed
[42:20] a foyer on our council. I know, I know what you I know
[42:22] what you're saying is take it, take it to another level. So the
[42:25] thing is this, So this counselor that you interviewed, Uh do they do?
[42:34] They have the supportive majority of people around the day they lost the recommendation
[42:37] vote for no kidding, with the mayor voting against huh no kidding. Okay,
[42:44] Well, I mean, like, look, I agree with you.
[42:46] I think that I think that it is doing the right thing is far more
[42:52] important than anybody's political career. I agree with that. That's but there's a
[42:57] reason why you and I aren't career politicians because you know that right exactly exactly,
[43:04] Like I just don't think expecting expecting somebody to self immolate over this is
[43:12] it's asking a lot. And to your point, though, there are people
[43:15] around the table who have no political future beyond city councilor Windsor, there is
[43:21] nothing for you when you're done on being a Windsor city councilor. And like
[43:27] it would be, this would be the opportune moment for anybody. Maybe Ed
[43:30] Sleeman couldn't do it, but almost anybody could break ranks at this point and
[43:36] and pull this card and make something work. But none of them are going
[43:39] to do it. Well you saw in the past, I mean, if
[43:44] you're talking about former councilor Bordal and a former councilor Hold, I mean Reno
[43:47] was probably the obvious poster job for this. He fought with the mayor from
[43:52] day one, and as someone who lived in his ward, the mayor went
[43:55] out of his way to make sure to make an example of these counselors to
[44:00] all the other counselors. If you're gonna go down this path with me.
[44:04] You know what's gonna happen your ward funds. You're getting zero. The people
[44:07] in your ward are gonna get screwed because of you, because I don't like
[44:10] you. And that wasn't a threat he did it. I mean, you
[44:14] brought up the word funds before. At least when Mayor Francis was in there,
[44:16] it was a million dollars for each counselor. I didn't like that either,
[44:20] but that's what they I think it was a discretionary million bucks. At
[44:22] least it was equitable library. No, Francis has political sense. You buy
[44:29] them all at one price. But the first year Drew got in there,
[44:34] he it wasn't I'm doing it my way. I'm going to decide who gets
[44:37] the money. Holt got nothing for ward four, Rina got nothing for ward
[44:40] three, and everybody else who played ball got stuff. I mean, that's
[44:44] the perfect example in this situation. So I get what you're saying. Someone
[44:49] should have the you know, use your own bad word there to go and
[44:54] do it. But they're not going to because they've been shown. If you
[45:00] go up against the mayor and try to bust his ass on this stuff,
[45:02] he's going to punish you and the people in your ward. Who's gonna do
[45:06] it? I mean, nobody that I can see on council right now,
[45:09] except for if you're deciding you're going to run for mayor next time, is
[45:14] going to do this in the next two years because they're just gonna get their
[45:15] ass handed to them. Now, that is completely the wrong way to run
[45:21] any organization, but that's the organization we have, and this suit just brings
[45:25] it out into the dinerline. Can we take a step back to though,
[45:28] like beyond that, Like, I'm not disagreeing with you, but do you
[45:34] think that this culture was invented and perfected by Drew Dilkins in eight years?
[45:40] I think he took the previous culture and doubled down on it. I think
[45:45] there's some truth to what Calucci allegedly said that this is the windsor way.
[45:51] I think there's some truth to that. I think that this these are tendencies
[45:57] and windsor politics that go way beyond one person. Do I think that Drew
[46:00] Dilkins is uniquely exemplifies some of these qualities. I absolutely do. But I
[46:07] also think that they're like you. If if some new mayor came into town
[46:15] and decided that you know this, this is going to be I don't know,
[46:19] this is going to be a tobacco spit in town. And they just
[46:22] started spitting tobacco everywhere. You would not see boards of directors buying spittoons for
[46:27] their organizations and you know what I mean. And like like people suddenly prominently
[46:32] spitting tobacco all over the place because you know, because the mayor's doing it,
[46:37] Like you wouldn't see that. But in this case, in this case,
[46:40] like everybody just jumped right on board with what Drew Dilkins was cooking because
[46:47] it's a meal that we're very familiar with in Windsor. That's all. That's
[46:51] That's how I see it. I just don't think this is he fits into
[46:54] a spot that is completely molded for these tendencies in this base. Yeah,
[47:00] because I think when what was so what people didn't like about Eddie Francis as
[47:05] he came in and he kind of changed the dynamic down at city council because
[47:08] before that, going back historically in Windsor, we all knew the the labor
[47:14] unions decided who were mayors and who our counselors were. They had a lot
[47:17] of Remember when Lownza was on when he finally lost Dad Sleeman, it was
[47:22] the greatest shock in the world that a Lewnza could lose an election. That
[47:24] was the first time you saw that. Okay, maybe the culture's changing a
[47:29] bit because but it's the same thing. It's just different sides of the same
[47:34] circle are now just running things of the city. I mean, before it
[47:37] was the labor unions. Now it's the Francis Drew people or have the power
[47:44] down there. You're right, it's not any different. It's just who's running
[47:46] it is different, that's all. I'd advance a sociological theory, but every
[47:51] time I do, my friend who's a sociologist makes fun of me and mocks
[47:53] me. So I'm going to not do that. John Well, I got
[47:59] mocked routine. So that's perfectly fine. We've had a strong mayor system in
[48:04] this city for quite some time. Sure, Mike Hurst was in office for
[48:07] twelve years and he what regularly we would receive over ninety percent of the voter
[48:14] votes. That's a mayor who can act with himpunity. Now he wasn't you
[48:17] know. We've had we had some scandals underneath the administration. There was a
[48:22] big push to get rid of that spend big side of things, and that
[48:27] was the flip over to Francis. But we had mayors taking their girlfriends to
[48:30] Mexico on the city's dime in the eighties. This goes back, Yeah,
[48:35] and it's just we're a small to middle city that you know, can get
[48:42] away with this kind of stuff because we don't really have the eyes of the
[48:45] province on us at all times. And it's easy to you know, for
[48:50] people to be able to win and set that culture up. And it's not
[48:52] a surprising that it went from one administration to a different ideological one to a
[48:57] similar one. Right, why would you give back power? One? Got
[49:00] it? Everybody look things like when Windsor shows up at the bottom of another
[49:05] statistical league table, right, we have all the excuses primed. Everybody is
[49:12] ready to explain why Windsor is special, unique, different, and nobody and
[49:17] those idiots in Toronto who put this graft together don't understand that it's upside down,
[49:22] right, all of that stuff, And like, this is a culture.
[49:28] This is a culture. This is something that people know how to do.
[49:30] People instinctively know what they're supposed to do. Hello, mister minor function
[49:36] area. It looks like Windsor is the worst place in Canada to get bitten
[49:39] by a mosquito. Oh, it's fake news, bullshit, like they they
[49:43] know right away. Yeah. So I just think that this is a lot
[49:45] bigger than Drew Dilkins, and it would be unfortunate outcome of this. If
[49:55] the end result is that there is a cathartic public shaming and defenestration of Drew
[50:01] Dilkins and then the city keeps running the way it always has, I think
[50:05] that would be really unfortunate. Yeah, it's it's the running joke. That's
[50:09] the Maid and Windsor solution, right, That has been the tagline we've come
[50:13] up with every time we see a problem, We're gonna do it our way,
[50:15] not the way that's worked in eight thousand other cities that I had the
[50:19] same problem, because we're smarter everybody else, and it turns into a disaster
[50:22] every time, which is the sarcasm as the Maid and Winsor solution. But
[50:25] you know, it's not like it's just contained within city Hall or council chambers.
[50:30] And that's the issue as well. We talk about it here on the
[50:34] show fairly often. Of the lack of critical commentary from organizations or individuals that
[50:39] should, quite frankly be coming out and saying negative things sometimes the media,
[50:45] and not just because of who we are, but because of you know,
[50:46] the things that are going on in our community. But we don't see that.
[50:51] We see that constant circling of the wagons that you were talking about Frasier.
[50:54] Yeah, and that exists in the not for profit sector, it exists
[50:57] in the charity sector, it exists in the prime sector. And they've got
[51:01] their lieutenants well deployed that when they need to get their messaging out there,
[51:07] they can, and then when they need a story to fall apart, oh
[51:09] no, sorry, I guess no one's picking up the phone today. Maybe
[51:13] you'll get around to it next week. And that's tough because they know how
[51:15] to beat out the clock in a depressed media market. Okay, so this
[51:22] is a pretty uplifting hour of podcasting. It's been a it's interesting, and
[51:28] I you know, I think that the Windsorites who are acting like this is
[51:39] a vindication and a justification of everything that they've been saying for a long time,
[51:45] should carefully consider what they want and what they should do next, because
[51:51] if you think this was good, if you think this is a welcome change,
[51:53] then you probably want it to be better and extended and enhanced. And
[51:58] so maybe consider what your next options are. But for you know, the
[52:04] for the winsorights who are and some of them are elected, who are shocked
[52:09] to find out that gambling is happening in an establishment like this, like don't
[52:15] get too cute, guys, like we know who you are too, and
[52:20] like this cool your jets and this whole like you know, John, I
[52:23] know what you're saying, and and I see the play of of like the
[52:30] the transparency and anti corruption crusader Fred Francis. I just think that there is
[52:35] a there are some severe and harsh limits to that narrative. So let's see
[52:39] how it gets deployed and how far it goes. It would have to be
[52:42] deployed very carefully. It could blow up real quick. Could we also just
[52:46] one quick thing? I know we wanted to wrap this up, but the
[52:47] photo choice that the winsor Start used for the last today. Oh, I
[52:52] thought you were going to talk about the CBS CBC's choice for Ed that photo
[52:58] he's just standing in the middle. It's erskin, it's a photo that was
[53:02] not suitable for publication until it was an Erskin street photo. Oh that is
[53:07] excellent, ed get out of the middle of the road. A mark in
[53:09] come. You were going to talk about another photo. Yeah, the photo
[53:15] of oh yeah. The headline is need to appease Windsor mayor was known at
[53:20] city Hall claims former counselor, which is revealed in the photograph to be former
[53:24] Ward three Councilorrino Bortland, and a photograph of him appeasing A photograph is in
[53:30] getting the key to the city. And everyone in the photo looks so uncomfortable.
[53:36] It's like a Renaissance painting. It's so well done. I recommend all
[53:42] of you go and take a look at that photo because beautiful. No one's
[53:45] happy to be there, and I love that, folks. This was Rose
[53:49] City Politics April fifteenth. Regular panel included Doug Star, Tory Fraser Fathers,
[53:53] Don Maryfield Junior, and myself. John Lidkey had to patroon dot com slash
[53:58] Rose City Politics, pick a Buzek magazine, be sure to like, share
[54:01] and subscribe, and Rosy Politics able to broadcast live on tape thanks to the
[54:06] kind support of Luna six two five Building better Communities. We'll be back next week.

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