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When Premier Doug Ford hosted a stag-and-doe party for his daughter last year, the Ontario Provincial Police asked the Toronto police to help staff it — but a personal friend of the premier on the force cautioned against it, emails show.
Ron Taverner, a Toronto police superintendent in Etobicoke, advised his colleagues against accepting the OPP's request to assign city police to the party a few hours before it started since it was “private” and "a fundraiser," an exchange between him and another officer shows.
Taverner's call was ultimately the one that was made, according to a spokesperson for the Toronto Police Service (TPS).
"There were no on-duty resources assigned to the Premier's residence on Aug. 11, 2022," Stephanie Sayer, a media relations manager with the TPS, said in an email on Thursday.
Late on the eve of the party, Toronto police Const. Nancy Girardi emailed Taverner, a dozen other cops, and the service’s operations centre, telling them about the OPP's request.
“Good evening, This is for your information and action as you deem appropriate. The OPP Premier’s Protective Detail are advising that the Premier will be hosting an event at his residence … tomorrow evening, Thursday Aug. 11 (sic), from 1800hrs until 2200hrs. Approximately 750 guests have been invited,” Girardi wrote in an email sent at 11:01 p.m. on Aug. 10, 2022.
“The OPP are requesting a uniformed presence. Will there be coverage tomorrow evening with the ongoing security details?” her email continued.
Taverner responded the next afternoon, about four hours before Ford’s pre-wedding celebration for his son-in-law and daughter was scheduled to start.
“Nancy, Just an FYI, this event is a private function and a fundraiser. We are reluctant to sent (sic) on duty resources to this event unless Police are called for a specific reason,” Taverner wrote back to Girardi and the others she had emailed.
The next line of Taverner's email was redacted for safety or personal privacy reasons from the copy The Trillium obtained through the freedom-of-information system.
He continued: “If events required a larger Police response we will obviously attend. If you require further information please reach out.”
Taverner is a longtime family friend of the Fords. He went to another pre-wedding celebration hosted by Ford before the stag and doe and attended the Sept. 25 wedding as well.
Taverner was central to a Ford government controversy during its early months over his short-lived appointment as future commissioner of the provincial police. Less than a week after the government's announcement of Taverner's appointment, it was reported that the government had lowered its qualifications to allow the Toronto police superintendent to apply.
Taverner bowed out months later, never assuming the role atop the OPP.
How much for 'the boys?'
Taverner's and his colleague's email exchange also reveals for the first time that "750 guests" were invited to the stag and doe.
Ford has said he has "an open-door policy" at events he hosts, when questioned by journalists about the Aug. 11, 2022 fundraiser party he threw for his daughter and son-in-law.
Never has the premier said how many people attended it.
If 750 guests paid the $150 ticket price that Ford has said was the cost to attend, the amount raised from ticket sales would have been $112,500.
On Feb. 15, Ford said “the boys took care of that” when asked who received the proceeds from the party.
Restrictions around receiving gifts in the ethics law for elected provincial politicians do not apply to MPPs’ adult children or their spouses.
Call for backup unclear
Why exactly the OPP asked for Toronto police to assign a "uniformed presence" to the event is unclear.
A spokesperson of Ford's said "premier's office staff do not direct any decisions related to the premier’s security detail," and redirected questions to the OPP and TPS.
"We cannot discuss operational matters related to protected persons," Bill Dickson, spokesperson for the OPP, said in an email. "I can tell you that the OPP gathers as much information as possible about all situations in which a protected person will be involved and then deploy any resources deemed necessary to fulfil our duties."
A separate freedom-of-information request seeking information about how many provincial police officers worked the Aug. 11, 2022 stag and doe at the premier's house captured an undisclosed number of records. They were blocked from being released. The Ministry of the Solicitor General cited eight different types of exemptions under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act that relate to law enforcement and personal privacy in the letter explaining its decision.
Sayer, the Toronto police spokesperson, said designated Toronto police officers sometimes fill in for the special unit OPP officers who serve as security for the premier.
A small number of officers from the OPP’s protective services section provide security to Ontario’s premier each day and often travel with him as well. Other provincial dignitaries — like Ontario's lieutenant-governor and other cabinet ministers — are also staffed by personnel from this division at times.
The OPP's spokesperson told The Trillium that its protective services section consults with a local police service when a dignitary they’re serving as security for is attending an event within another service’s jurisdiction.
“This consultation may result in local resources being deployed to assist,” Dickson, the OPP’s manager of media relations, said in an email this week. “Each scenario is different and is assessed by examining varying sources of information.”
The Toronto police's spokesperson said local services are reimbursed by the OPP when they provide support to the premier's security detail.
The Aug. 11, 2022, party hosted by Ford was not a government event. Nor was it a PC party event, although the chair of the PC Party's fundraising arm also sold tickets to it, and developers and lobbyists attended.
Sunday scaries
The stag and doe came back to haunt Ford and his government months after it was held.
Reporting on the event in February shook Queen’s Park, consuming opposition parties’ and government’s attention for weeks.
The light shone on the stag and doe also brought more attention to Ford’s personal relationships with real estate developers and ramped up scrutiny of his government’s Greenbelt removals.
The premier would later apologize for the Greenbelt land swap and promise to return the land after the scandal forced resignations from two cabinet ministers and two senior staffers who were involved in it. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are currently investigating the government's Greenbelt changes.
Two developers owning properties the Ford government removed from the Greenbelt were involved in the Aug. 11 stag and doe, Integrity Commissioner J. David Wake found while investigating the land removals.
Ontario's integrity commissioner looked into the stag and doe while looking into the Greenbelt changes but ultimately chose not to further investigate the couple’s fundraiser and wedding that followed it on Sept. 25, 2022.
In reports, Wake noted “flaws” with the investigation request NDP Leader Marit Stiles made and highlighted the need for having “more than… a ‘reasonable suspicion’” to launch an in-depth inquiry on the premier.
Stiles’ complaint and what he’d heard about Ford’s daughter’s stag and doe and wedding during his Greenbelt investigation left Wake with “insufficient grounds” to conduct a full-fledged investigation into Ford and the events, he wrote in a Sept. 21 report.
“The integrity commissioner cleared me 100 per cent,” Ford said after the report was published.
Tony Miele, chair of the PC Ontario Fund, told the integrity commissioner that he sold approximately 20 tickets to the stag and doe, including four to developer Sergio Manchia.
Urban Solutions, Manchia's company that he retired from over the summer, owns property that was later removed from the Greenbelt and land that was effectively rezoned to allow for development through changes the Ford government made to Hamilton's official plan. The dozen municipalities' official plans that Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Paul Calandra recently promised to walk back included Hamilton's.
Manchia didn't end up attending the stag and doe, he told Wake, instead giving the tickets he bought to his colleague Matt Johnston and three others.
"(Johnston) said he briefly met Premier Ford at that event, for a handshake and quick hello, but had no other conversation with him," the integrity commissioner's Aug. 30 Greenbelt report said.
Shakir Rehmatullah, who runs Flato Developments, also went to the stag and doe and Sept. 25, 2022 wedding that followed it.
Rehmatullah also owns land taken out of the Greenbelt and has secured nine development-fast-tracking minister's zoning orders from the Ford government, according to a tally by the NDP,
Wake’s Aug. 30 report and the auditor general’s before it both noted that a lawyer representing Rehmatullah sent a letter two days after the wedding to Ryan Amato, then-chief of staff to Ontario’s housing minister, requesting a portion of a property he owned be removed from the protected area.
Amato was spearheading the land-selection process that led to the Greenbelt removals at the time. The land Rehmatullah’s lawyer asked to be taken out of the Greenbelt was removed soon after.
Rehmatullah also played a part in two other developers' efforts to get properties they owned removed from the Greenbelt, Wake found.
Rehmatullah denied having been tipped off about the Ford government’s plans to Wake, which the commissioner wrote “strains credulity” in his Aug. 30 report. In the same report, Wake said he found it “more likely than not that someone did” let Rehmatullah know the government was considering removing land from the Greenbelt.”
“However any suggestion that Premier Ford alerted Mr. Rehmatullah, on the basis that he was a guest at his daughter’s wedding, I found to be fanciful,” Wake added in the report he published on Sept. 21 of this year.
On Feb. 10, in response to the first question he was asked at a public news conference about the stag and doe party, Ford said, “My daughter’s number 1 and her husband — (who) is a police officer — are private citizens.”
“I know the difference of what we should and shouldn’t do. Our family’s been in politics for 30 years and we know tens of thousands of people,” Ford added.
