Developer Peter Tanenbaum had long wanted to build houses on an 86-acre plot of Greenbelt land he owned in Clarington, so in 2022, he hired two consultants to help.
One was Nico Fidani-Diker, who previously worked as executive assistant to Premier Doug Ford and was now a registered lobbyist with multiple developers as clients.
The other was not a registered lobbyist, despite boasting in emails to his client that he was courting political staffers with invitations to golf and tickets to a Raptors game, and his contract included a $1-million bonus if the land was removed from the Greenbelt and approved for development.
This mystery consultant – who the integrity commissioner called “Mr. X” – has been identified to the Star as former Clarington Mayor John Mutton.
Mutton, who is president of the consulting and business development firm Municipal Solutions, told the Star that he has worked for Tanenbaum for “over 17 years,” but stressed that it wasn’t as a lobbyist.
“I’m not a lobbyist. I have a development services company where we provide planning, engineering, and everything,” he said in a brief telephone conversation.
“I’ve never been contracted to do any type of lobbying to get any lands out of the Greenbelt.”
Mutton said he did not know the identity of the Mr. X described in the integrity commissioner’s report.
In an interview, Fidani-Diker said Tanenbaum’s Greenbelt land near Nash Road was the first time he worked with Mutton – “and certainly the last,” he said.
“I have no interactions with Mr. Mutton other than this one file,” Fidani-Diker told the Star.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, right, welcomes Ontario’s minister of housing Steve Clark to the podium during a press conference in Mississauga, Ont., Friday, Aug. 11, 2023.
Cole Burston / THE CANADIAN PRESSContract included lucrative ‘Greenbelt fee’
Ford’s government has been reeling for weeks in the wake of a pair of damning investigations that revealed how a small group of developers received preferential treatment as part of a disorganized rush to open up parts of the Greenbelt to housing last fall.
Earlier this week Ontario’s integrity commissioner found Housing Minister Steve Clark broke ethics rules by choosing to “stick his head in the sand” while his chief of staff embarked on a “chaotic and almost reckless process” that furthered the private interests of developers who had his ear.
That report came on the heels of an Auditor General’s investigation that found much the same — and led to Clark’s chief of staff resigning — while concluding the developers whose lands were removed from the Greenbelt stood to benefit from an estimated $8.3 billion increase in the value of their lands.
The RCMP is still assessing whether it will launch an investigation into Greenbelt “irregularities.”
The integrity commissioner’s report quotes from the contract Mr. X’s company held with Tanenbaum’s, which stipulated that in addition to a $6,000-per-month payment, Mr. X’s firm would be paid an additional $225,000 “Greenbelt fee” if the land was removed from the Greenbelt, and another $775,000 should the lands get the necessary zoning to build houses.
Fidani-Diker said his company never charges this kind of a contingency fee, not in its work for Tanenbaum or for others. Ontario’s lobbying act prohibits lobbying work where payment is contingent on the degree of success in influencing decision makers.
“It’s unfortunate that some people choose not to register and conduct their business accordingly, and by default I’m getting looped into it,” Fidani-Diker said.
“I always play by the rules and I fully cooperated with the integrity commissioner and have no issues with continuing to do so should I be required to.”
A photograph of John Mutton and Premier Doug Ford posted to Mutton’s Instagram page on May 16, 2023. Mutton’s social media also includes a photograph of him with Housing Minister Steve Clark.
InstagramSocial media posts of consultant with Ford and Clark
Mutton did not respond to follow-up questions asking about several of the commissioner’s specific findings related to Mr. X. He was not interviewed by the commissioner for the report.
Mutton’s social media includes photographs of him with Premier Ford and Housing Minister Steve Clark. In one post, on LinkedIn, he described his company’s work: “We project manage cutting the red tape for all land use development.”
Mutton was first elected mayor in Clarington in 2000. Voters denied him a third term in 2006, a loss he blamed on the fact that he was facing criminal charges for allegedly assaulting his wife and daughter. He had always maintained his innocence and . He unsuccessfully ran for Durham regional chair in 2018.
A lawyer representing Tanenbaum did not respond to questions about whether he knew one of his consultants was not registered as a lobbyist, or who proposed the contract’s $1-million contingency payment.
Fidani-Diker told the integrity commissioner that when he first met Tanenbaum in August 2022, the developer told him Mr. X was already in touch with someone in the provincial government about the Nash Road property, according to the report.
Fidani-Diker told the commissioner that he was instructed he would be “mainly working through Mr. X as he liaisons [sic] with the government.”
A ‘high stakes’ lunch
One of those interactions, the report describes, was a lunch with Kirstin Jensen, Clark’s deputy chief of staff.
The meeting took place Sept. 27 at the Joey restaurant in the Eaton Centre. Jensen told the commissioner that Mr. X probably paid for the lunch.
“The gift of the lunch may have seemed like a low-cost event to her but it was a high stakes event for the lobbyist, who stood to gain $1,000,000 if his client’s Greenbelt removal request was successful and municipal approvals were subsequently obtained,” the commissioner said in his report.
He said he did not name Mr. X because any investigation into potential lobbying violations would be separate from his investigation into Clark and the province’s lobbying act restricts him from disclosing whether an investigation is being conducted.
He is only able to reveal Mr. X’s identity if, after conducting an investigation, he concludes he broke the rules.
The commissioner noted that he “included the evidence gathered concerning Mr. X to demonstrate the potential effect that unregistered lobbying could have on the process adopted in this case for Greenbelt removals.”
During the lunch, Jensen told the commissioner, Mr. X mentioned a couple of files he was working on involving MZOs or minister’s zoning orders – a controversial tool that allows the housing minister to rezone a piece of land to fast-track development.
The consultant also gave her a package for Ryan Amato, who was her boss and Clark’s chief of staff at the time.
Amato, who resigned last week as the Greenbelt scandal continued to engulf Queen’s Park, is described by the integrity commissioner as the “driving force behind a flawed process which provided an advantage to those who approached him.”
Both the integrity commissioner’s and auditor general’s investigations found he personally selected 14 of the 15 sites ultimately removed from the Greenbelt, including the land owned by Tanenbaum in Clarington.
Jensen did not respond to the Star’s questions about her interactions with Mr. X.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the housing minister stated, “[Jensen] was not involved in any decision-making related to the changes to the Greenbelt. It is the sole responsibility of the lobbyist to comply with all rules and regulations as set out in the Lobbyists Registration Act.”
Email suggests political staffers invited to golf, Raptors game
Emails Mr. X sent to his client Tanenbaum suggest courting political staff was part of his strategy.
In one email sent nine days before the lunch, Mr. X told Tanenbaum that he had Jensen and Amato “coming to golf at Goodwood in 2 weeks with me” as well as to a Raptors game.
Jensen told the commissioner she was never invited by Mr. X to these activities.
Amato told the commissioner he had been invited to play golf at some point but declined.
“[Mr. X] is one of those guys that you just ‘yes them to death’ and then you cancel, or you don’t show up, or you just say no, right?” Amato is quoted as saying in the commissioner’s report. “Then they get the message that you really don’t want to spend any time with them and they stop inviting you to stuff.”
Amato told the commissioner he only dealt with Mr. X in “a professional manner,” though the commissioner questioned Amato’s comments, saying “his evidence to downplay his relationship with Mr. X strains credulity somewhat.”
Amato’s lawyer declined to respond to questions about Amato’s interactions with Mr. X. Amato has previously denied any wrongdoing related to his handling of the Greenbelt land swap.
Jesse McLean is a Toronto-based investigative reporter for the Star. Contact him at jmclean@thestar.ca
