Regent Park condo purchases were probably legit (but they’ll be reviewed nonetheless)
The potentially shady condo purchases over at Regent Park have now grown from “Toronto Sun scandal” to “possibly legitimate scandal.” Following columnist Sue-Ann Levy’s articles over the weekend accusing councillor Pam McConnell, project developers and TCHC execs of wrongdoing by buying plum condos in the revitalization project, the Toronto Community Housing Corporation has asked former Ontario chief justice Patrick J. LeSage to review the situation. Still, whether he’ll find any misconduct remains to be seen, since Toronto’s former integrity commissioner okayed the purchases as long as no special discounts or treatment was given.
According to the Toronto Star:
The city’s integrity commissioner does not have jurisdiction over the TCHC, but Mullan — who had retired months earlier — was sought out for his reputation on such matters and his knowledge of local politics. A TCHC lawyer asked Mullan to offer his opinion on two questions.
One was whether it would be appropriate for TCHC employees to buy condos in the development. The other was whether it would be appropriate for the joint venture company to allow those employees to receive a direct-sale discount of 4.5 per cent.
Mullan strongly argued that it would be improper for the employees to accept any discount. But he said it would be perfectly acceptable for the employees to buy condos on the same terms as ordinary residents.
And, as the Globe and Mail’s Marcus Gee writes, McConnell insists she paid market rate, and never hid the fact that she was buying a condo—she actually boasted about moving into the neighbourhood in a newsletter. Moreover, the council vote to approve the project, in which McConnell did participate, took place well before she bought her unit. The question still remains, however, whether the upper-middle class people buying into Regent Park are squeezing out low-income residents (the project was supposed to integrate the poor into the fabric of a vibrant new neighbourhood, after all). Levy contends that the revitalization doesn’t include any rent-geared-to-income units—and that doesn’t sound like the making of a true mixed-income development.
•TCHC reviewing Regent Park condo purchases by former employees [Globe and Mail]
•Former integrity commissioner gave blessing to condo purchases by TCHC executives [Toronto Star]
•Nothing shady about Pam McConnell’s Regent Park condo purchase [Globe and Mail]
Those lefty communists are moving into my low income housing!
Don’t they know how much I make as a Sun Columnist? I don’t have much to survive on but hatred, children’s tears, fear mongering and this sock full of quarters I use to beat down tired drawn out issues.
And then this McConnell left-tard moves into a Condo in my beautiful Regent Park. I thought I was entitled to this condo for free because I am the squeakiest wheel, but apparently you need connections and money to buy a nice condo in this city.
I know, I’ll b*tch about it to my loyal Sun readers. Using short words and colourful language. A real prize winning piece of journalism. To make sure people take me seriously I’ll surround the article with pictures almost naked women. Not too pretty because I want my low brow readers to think they could actually pick up these girls. So mid level attractive.
And then I’ll bawk bawk bawk diabled parking spot bawk bawk subways bawk bawk bawk bawk lowest common denominator bawk bawk bawk racist drivel back back back generic predictable tabloid journalism bawk bawk starving the beast bawk bawk bawk bawk bawk…
It’s like saying you’ll have a lawyer write up your will, instead of relying on own computer generated version.
Quit trolling, “Sue.” This is a serious issue, and it’s important that the taxpayers know their money is being spent for a good reason – to ferret out any possibility of potential wrongdoing by left-leaning anti-Fordists. We don’t need evidence to bring these bastards down in the next election – we just need to create the impression of impropriety, and we need to waste scarce public resources to do it, just to spit in government’s face. ha!
I disagree with “Joe”.
We should NOT focus on the more important and relevant issues.
We should be distracting the public from the real issues with padded op-ed pieces like this one.
That’s why a respected journalist like myself spent the last week trying to create a story to distract my readers from the recent failures of our overlord and supreme ruler Mayor Ford.
It is important we look at something else, ANYTHING ELSE than the crumbling loss of power of my presssss-ious.
What “Joe” isn’t giving me credit for is selling this as a sob story victimizing the poor people of Regent Park. It’s tough work setting up city employees as the bad guy – those jobs-for-life union-cry-babies make me sick. How dare they move into the area they represent. They should move out to the suburbs where they bawk bawk bawk. (you get the idea)
The tricky bit though “Joe”, was making my readers feel sorry for the people in the low income housing while not drawing attention to the fact that my bestest friend Ford is hell bent on cutting the social programs designed to also help low income families.
Making low income families not Ford’s fault is what makes me the Self congratulatory queen of all Toronto media.
Demonizing the Councillors that are anti-ford and getting them kicked off is job#1 at the Sun. As Ford said, you are with me or against me”… or was that Bush…
Either way – FORD 2014! FORD 2014!! Mwahh haa haa haaaa.
And please spit in my face cause Levy’s been a dirty dirty girl and needs a good Tory spankin’
I don’t think McConnell did anything illegal… but what disturbs me about the regent park redevelopment is that it spent vast amounts of public funds on a project which basically benefitted a developer and those able to buy condos. Most of the people who lived in Regent Park were kicked out so will get little benefit from all the amenities (arts, cultural centre) that were financed with public funds.
The Integrity Commissioner cleared TCHC staff to purchase a unit NOT Councillor Pam McConnell. Secondly when was the ruling given? Before or after Daniels was given the contract for the rest of the project phases.
Can Sue-Ann Levy investigate the Port Lands by Ikea in London? Like the furniture,she’ll never be able to build a story!
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/welcome-to-ikea-land-furniture-giant-begins-urban-planning-project/article2388705/
I find it sick that Pam bought one of these units weather they were okayed or not, how dare she buy one of these units when working on getting funding for the project. I live in a TCHC shit hole at 460 Jarvis with drug dealers that pay TCHC to deal drugs 24/7 even to children from the public school across the street. She should live in one of the crack houses she runs before living in one of these new places!