Former West St. Paul councillor found to be in conflict of interest more than 20 times

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This article was published 09/12/2015 (3614 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A former West St. Paul councillor was in conflict of interest more than 20 times between 2010 and 2014 in council debates or votes regarding his brother’s companies, says a damning report by the Manitoba Ombudsman.

Most egregious of all was Dan Garcea’s conflict of interest in the awarding of $3 million in contracts to build the rural municipality’s new fire hall, the report said.

Much of the contract was awarded to companies owned by Garcea’s brother, John, head of the Garcea Group of Companies. Dan Garcea works for John.

Garcea did not recuse himself from the council debate or votes.

At the same time, John was acting as a volunteer consultant on the project for the municipality.

“The RM did not provide a fair tendering process for the fire-hall project,” the ombudsman concludes.

“We determined that the councillor in question failed to follow the statutory requirements and RM policy regarding conflicts of interest and did not adhere to procedural fairness principles,” the report states.

Garcea was a three-term councillor until 2014, when he ran for mayor and lost to Bruce Henley.

At least two in-camera meetings were held by council in 2013 over complaints Garcea was in a conflict of interest on the fire-hall project. Less than 30 days after the second in-camera meeting, Henley was attacked in his driveway by two hooded men wielding baseball bats.

Henley was getting into his car on his driveway at 6 a.m. when two men sprang from behind bushes and struck him repeatedly with bats. Henley was taken to hospital and released. Henley told the Free Press this week he believes the attack — the men did not try to rob him — is related to his opposition to the tendering process of the fire-hall project.

The Manitoba Ombudsman investigation was triggered by anonymous complaints against Dan Garcea. The ombudsman’s office said it is wary of anonymous tips, but after receiving six complaints, it decided an investigation was necessary. It also received a complaint from a lawyer who alleged Garcea breached conflict-of-interest guidelines.

Garcea told the ombudsman he thought conflict-of-interest guidelines only applied to immediate family members — such as himself, his spouse and his children — and only where they might receive financial benefit. “Outside of that, I think it’s pretty grey,” he told the ombudsman, as quoted in the report.

The ombudsman’s report said: “He exempted the company where he was employed as well as other family members, including his brother, who was also his employer, from any personal application of conflict-of-interest provisions or perception of bias.”

Garcea insisted on his interpretation of conflict-of-interest guidelines in an interview with the Free Press. “It has to benefit you personally. That’s the way it reads. There’s definitely some grey areas in the ombudsman’s report,” he said.

“I hope you can believe that there was no ill intention here and no corruption,” he continued. “It’s how you portray it, I suppose. There was always good intentions by everybody… Everyone was out to do the best they could for the RM, and they did.”

But the ombudsman’s report pointed out Garcea is not a novice, but had been a councillor for 12 years and even voted for some of the RM’s code-of-conduct policies that included conflict-of-interest guidelines.

“(Garcea) did not appear to have fully understood his obligations under the MCCIA (Manitoba Council Conflict of Interest Act), other provincial acts governing municipal governments and the policies of the RM.”

The report also holds the RM council to account for not doing more to censure Garcea. However, it complimented council for acting quickly to ensure current councillors take training in conflict-of-interest guidelines and for other recent measures.

Henley raised concerns about the tendering process to the ad hoc committee, after complaints arose against Garcea, as well as to council at a November 2012 general council meeting, according to the report. In an interview, Henley said he also raised concerns during two in-camera meetings in September 2013 to discuss complaints of conflict of interest. He could not say more about the meetings without breaching confidentiality.

Henley said censuring a councillor requires a majority plus one. That would have meant getting everyone on the five-person council other than Garcea voting against Garcea, which Henley said wasn’t possible under the previous council. Short of that, a councillor or any resident of the RM would have to pursue ousting Garcea through the courts. “Your options are very limited,” he said.

Henley said mayors and councillors don’t always know each other’s businesses and business ties, so the onus is on the councillor to declare the conflict of interest. “It becomes a very individual thing,” he said.

The ombudsman also questioned how Garcea’s brother could be a volunteer consultant on the fire hall and be bidding on the project at the same time. “He advised our office that he saw nothing wrong with having companies that he owned submit bids on the fire hall given all the work he had done as a volunteer consultant on the project.”

The Manitoba Ombudsman is an independent office of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba and is not part of any government department or agency. The ombudsman’s report will be tabled at the West St. Paul council meeting that starts Thursday at 5 p.m.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca