City Council Votes to Pay for Councillor Augimeri’s Lawyer

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Toronto City Council have voted in favor of the city paying the legal costs of council candidate, Gus Cusimano, after the integrity commissioner ruled that Councillor running against Mr. Cusimano, Maria Augimeri, breached the code of conduct by calling him a “criminal.”

The report issued by the Integrity Commissioner, Janet Leiper, revealed last week that Mr. Cusimano’s legal fees up to $5,000 should be covered by the city as per city’s protocol. Despite objection from Mayor Rob Ford and his brother Councillor Doug Ford, the council voted 30 to 4 to accept Ms. Leiper’s recommendations. The claim by Ms. Augimeri was made in an article issued in Italian-language newspaper back in February 2014, which said that “the people do not want to be represented by a criminal.” In response to legal action, Ms. Augimeri later apologized and provided a retraction of her comment.

However, the false claim prompted Mr. Cusimano to hire a lawyer to assist in filing the complaint to the integrity commissioner. Several councillors supported Ms. Leiper’s recommendations on Tuesday, stressing that the city should apply its own rules for such situations. Councillor Gord Perks stated that “we do have a global budget that takes care of surprise costs related to how councillors perform their duties,” adding that “that would include lawsuits, and there are lawsuits all the time, often frivolous ones. I was once sued for putting a swing set in a park.” Whereas, Councillor John Parker highlighted that “now is not the time to say we don’t like the policy,” but “right now, we are here to apply the policy.”

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