November 13, 2009

For Immediate Release

Contact: Brian Iler, Chair

In a bizarre turn, the TPA’s Mark McQueen has sought the services of the Auditor-General of Canada to cleanse itself (see Letter to Sheila Fraser at www.torontoport.com/PortAuthority/media_content.asp?id=407)

Mark McQueen must know, as he has been told before, that the Auditor-General is bound by the Auditor-General Act, and cannot act outside of it.

Is this just another attempt to deflect attention from the real story, using the same tactics described in Tuesday’s Star?

The TPA has never denied reports that $50,000 was spent by Lisa Raitt and other senior management at the plush Harbour 60 Steakhouse (handily located downstairs from the TPA office) over the first eight months of 2008.

The central questions that cry out for answers are:

• Why was public money spent on such luxurious meals?
• Just exactly what cost so much?
• Who was present?
• What was discussed?
• What Port Authority business was conducted at those meals that could possibly justify those expenses?
• What was the expense approval policy in force?
• What evidence is there that that policy was honoured?
• We also ask why Mr. McQueen cast the deciding vote, in January 2009, to suppress an inquiry into another $65,000 spent by the TPA to give legal advice to him and Lisa Raitt. The inquiry was supposed to determine whether the advice was personal to them, and therefore improperly paid for by the TPA, or for the benefit of the TPA, and therefore properly disclosed to the TPA board.

The answers to all of these questions are within Mark McQueen’s personal knowledge. Transparency is overdue. Stop the stonewalling. Working towards a clean, green waterfront 890 Yonge St, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4W 3P4

Some excerpts from Harbour 60’s menu www.harboursixty.com/dinner.pdf: