A Vision Vancouver board member arranged Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s campaign stop at the city engineering department office, the Courier has learned.
Documents released Oct. 21 under Freedom of Information show Brittney Kerr, a professional lobbyist with Earnscliffe Strategy Group, was the B.C. tour director for the future Prime Minister and city bureaucrats worked overtime to make the Sept. 10 event happen.
Bill Aujla, the city’s real estate and facilities general manager, sent an urgent message at 6:53 p.m. Sept. 7 to his subordinates Jerry Evans and Patrick Murphy that he “just received a request” from the city manager’s office to hold an event. An EasyPark lot on Terminal Avenue, across from the Main Street-Science World SkyTrain station, was the presumed venue until a day later, when Aujla met Kerr.
“The team is very pleased with the 3rd floor patio space that you showed us,” Kerr wrote to Aujla. “As discussed, we would like to proceed with that space for our brief media announcement. Please advise what is required from us at this point. We are all hands on deck for this over the next 48 hours.”
A Sept. 9 contract with no financial terms named Linda Hooper as user of the Crossroads Building patio and part of a city parking lot for a 6:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. “media availability.” The contract doesn’t mention Trudeau or even contain the word Liberal. Hooper’s address is the same as the party’s B.C. headquarters.
At the event, Trudeau promised to spend $20 billion more on transit infrastructure over a decade and expressed support for the proposed Broadway subway. He was accompanied by candidates, including Jessie Adcock, the city chief digital officer who took leave-of-absence for an unsuccessful Liberal run in Port Moody-Coquitlam. Trudeau also posed for photographs inside the engineering department and met with then-city manager Penny Ballem and city engineer Jerry Dobrovolny.
The choice of venue — a government office normally free of partisan politics — prompted queries from several reporters. In one email, a city hall spokesman asked Ballem to approve a statement that said: “Requests for any political party to use a city facility during an election campaign go to the office of the city manager. Depending on the facility, the request is forwarded to the appropriate department to ensure the space is suitable for an event.”
Park Board policy, meanwhile, does allow political organizations to rent space at community centres and parks, though board approval may be required, depending on the size and nature of the event. The city’s code of conduct precludes employees from displaying slogans or symbols for a party or candidate while at work, where their duties require them to interact with the public. The policy also bans the city manager, general managers and their equivalents from public political activity, other than voting in an election.
Ballem’s calendar for the afternoon of Sept. 8 included a one-hour meeting with Mike Magee, Mayor Gregor Robertson’s chief of staff, under the heading “2015 Election Strategy.”
Coincidentally, Ballem was fired Sept. 15 and left with a $556,000 golden parachute. The Elections Canada database shows two political donations under her name, before her December 2008 hiring: $1,100 to the Vancouver Quadra Federal Liberal Association on Feb. 18, 2008 and $500 to Liberal MP Stephen Owen on June 28, 2004.
Kerr’s clients, according to the B.C. Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists, are Microsoft Canada and Shaw Communications. Asked for comment on Oct. 27, Kerr said she was not available. She did not respond to a follow-up email before deadline. Earnscliffe principal Bruce Young was the Liberal campaign co-chair for B.C. and is registered to lobby the provincial government for the Vancouver Art Gallery, which wants to move to a city-owned site on Larwill Park.
Vancouver city hall has no bylaw regulating lobbying of elected or appointed city officials.
Steve Kukucha, a partner in Wazuku Advisory Group, also worked with Kerr and Young on the Trudeau campaign. His B.C. lobbying clients include the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline.
DOCUMENTS RELEASED THROUGH FREEDOM OF INFORMATION
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