An Ontario lobbyist with shut connections to Premier Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservative Get together violated the province’s lobbying guidelines, based on the integrity commissioner, after requesting Greenbelt lands be eliminated on behalf of a consumer and providing authorities employees tickets to a hockey sport.
Nico Fidani-Diker was present in non-compliance with the Lobbyists Registration Act in 5 separate cases, starting from unregistered lobbying to putting public workplace holders ready of battle of curiosity between 2022 and 2023, the integrity commissioner confirmed Monday.
Not less than two of the cases of non-compliance concerned a proactive and finally profitable effort to persuade the Ford authorities to take away sections of land from the Greenbelt for growth.
The federal government’s determination in 2022 to take away 7,40 acres of land from the Greenbelt led to public blowback, an energetic RCMP investigation, an apology and reversals from Premier Ford.
The land was faraway from the Greenbelt in 2022 in a transfer the auditor common prompt would profit choose builders by greater than $8 billion. It was returned to its protected standing the following 12 months when Ford apologized.
In an announcement to International Information, Fidani-Diker accepted “full accountability” and stated it was by no means his “intent to be in non-compliance whereas lobbying.”
“I settle for full accountability for his selections and findings relating to my preliminary months as a registered lobbyist, when organising my firm three years in the past,” Fidani-Diker stated. “These oversights had been mine and mine alone.”
“I thank the Integrity Commissioner for bringing closure to this matter and for his recognition that no additional motion from his workplace is critical,” Fidani-Diker stated.
Fidani-Diker has had a long-standing relationship with the Ford household relationship again to Toronto Metropolis Corridor when he served as a particular assistant in Mayor Rob Ford’s Workplace.
When Doug Ford turned Premier in 2018, Fidani-Diker moved to Queen’s Park, serving as his government assistant earlier than being promoted to handle Stakeholder Relations in 2020.
Fidani-Diker advised the integrity commissioner that he had recognized Premier Ford “for a very long time” and that their “households are mates.” Fidani-Diker additionally attended the stag and doe get together held within the yard of Ford’s Etobicoke house in 2022.
Fidani-Diker spent two years managing stakeholder relationships for the Ontario Progressive Conservative Get together after he left authorities. He then launched a lobbying agency ONpoint Technique Group in 2022 – a boutique operation specializing in “securing approvals, influencing coverage, or managing public notion.”
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Shortly after, Fidani-Diker threw a launch get together and hosted a few of the key gamers within the Greenbelt scandal, together with then-Housing Minister Steve Clark, Clark’s then-Chief of Employees Ryan Amato, together with different elected officers, political employees and land builders
After the 2022 election, Ontario’s minister of housing started appearing on an instruction in Premier Ford’s 2022 mandate letter to evaluate the Greenbelt and tackle housing affordability.
Across the identical time, Fidani-Diker started representing landowners, a few of whom benefited from the federal government’s determination to change the boundaries.
A earlier report by the integrity commissioner revealed that Fidani-Diker labored with John Mutton, a long-time lobbyist and former Mayor of Clarington, who was solely recognized within the report as “Mr. X.”
A landowner, who for practically a decade had advocated for his lands to be faraway from the Greenbelt, employed Mutton and Fidani-Diker as consultants to push for the elimination of an 86-acre property on Nash Highway in Clarington.
Based on the report, Fidani-Diker charged $10,000 per 30 days for his companies, whereas “Mr. X” modified a $225,000 “Greenbelt charge” that may be paid as soon as the federal government made a last determination.
The 2 consultants had been employed between August and September 2022 — only a few months earlier than the federal government’s determination was introduced in November 2022.
Whereas Fidani-Diker was initially uncertain that any Greenbelt alterations could be thought-about by the Ford authorities, he advised the integrity commissioner that he offered recommendation and took part in bi-weekly conferences on the Nash Highway property.
On the identical time, Fidani-Diker started working with Penta Properties, which was seeking to take away 31 acres from the Greenbelt on the Mount Hope website in Hamilton.
Based on the integrity commissioner, Fidani-Diker ultimately offered the Ministry of Housing with a “package deal of knowledge” about websites to be extracted from the Greenbelt. The report said the package deal got here straight from the event firm’s CEO and was handed over to Amato for consideration.
“One map recognized solely the 31-acre property owned by Penta Properties within the Mount Hope space with a label “REMOVE FROM GREENBELT,” the report said.
Each lands Fidani-Diker was concerned with had been faraway from the Greenbelt in November 2022, earlier than the federal government reversed course and inserted the lands again in.
Earlier than his retirement in early 2025, Integrity Commissioner J. David Wake finalized a report into unregistered lobbying exercise. On Monday, his workplace printed the outcomes for the primary time.
Whereas the commissioner, who additionally acts because the Lobbyist Registrar, can hand out two-year lobbying bans for non-compliance, the workplace opted for a lighter contact in Fidani-Diker’s case: publicizing his identify and actions, which is taken into account a penalty in itself.
Wake decided that Fidani-Diner violated lobbying guidelines by “failing to file a registration after lobbying a public workplace holder with respect to requesting {that a} consumer’s lands be faraway from the Greenbelt space.”
Fidani-Diker, Wake discovered, additionally “contravened the act” by providing two public workplace holders tickets to a Toronto Maple Leafs sport which “knowingly” put them ready of battle of curiosity.
Whereas Wake’s findings don’t provide particular particulars, the penalty determination seems to additionally provide clues of a possible connection to Premier Ford.
In two separate violations, that International Information understands usually are not associated to the Greenbelt, Fidani-Diker allegedly broke lobbying guidelines for “knowingly putting a public workplace holder ready of actual or potential battle of curiosity within the court docket of lobbying him on behalf of one other consumer.”
Each violations, between 2022 and 2023, seem to narrate to the identical workplace holder – with whom Fidani-Diker has a “prior shut working relationship.”
In a single case, the penalty said, Fidani-Diker had “engaged in important political work with this public workplace holder and had a friendship with this public workplace holder.”
In one other case, Wake’s workplace stated Fidani-Diker had a “lengthy historical past of a detailed relationship” with the general public workplace holder, together with “important private, work and political connections.”
Since publishing his identify is seen as punishment, Fidani-Diker isn’t anticipated to face different additional reprimands from the Workplace of the Integrity Commissioner.
Fidani-Diker stated the work passed off throughout his “preliminary months as a registered lobbyist” whereas he was nonetheless organising his firm.
“It was by no means my intent to be in non-compliance whereas lobbying,” Fidani-Diker stated in an announcement.
“Since 2022, we now have instituted strict inner compliance on all registerable actions and have maintained a powerful report – freed from any points outdoors of those occasions – and we’ll proceed to take action,” Fidani-Diker stated.
“I’m dedicated to upholding the very best customary of integrity in my skilled actions.”
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