TORONTO—After Ron Taverner rejected the job created for him at the Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS), the position wasn’t filled by anyone else, according to documents obtained by iPolitics.

At the insistence of the premier’s office, Taverner, a friend of Ontario Premier Doug Ford, was offered the job of president of community partnerships at the OCS. The job came with a $270,000 annual salary, a potential 10 per cent performance bonus and a four year contract.

That represented a nearly $90,000 raise for Taverner, who last year earned $182,370 as a superintendent in the Toronto Police Service. Ultimately though, Taverner turned down the position and applied for the post of OPP commissioner. He was awarded the OPP job, but quit before being installed amid mounting controversy surrounding his appointment.

Information about the job offer at the OCS was revealed in the integrity commissioner’s March 20 report on Taverner’s appointment as OPP commissioner.

In his report, Integrity Commissioner J. David Wake details a rushed effort in August to secure a job for Taverner. However, documents obtained by iPolitics, through the access to information law, show the job hasn’t been filled since Taverner turned it down.

On March 22, iPolitics asked the OCS if the job had been filled or posted for a competition after Taverner declined the post. In a statement, spokesperson Amanda Winton said “as a matter of policy, the OCS does not comment on employee or staffing matters.”

iPolitics then filed an access to information request for the Crown agency’s most recent list of employees and their job titles. While most names were redacted, the document shows the position offered to Taverner has not been filled. Additionally the other titles that were considered by the government for the position (president of community outreach and president of community affairs) are not among the current roles held by staff of the OCS.

Community affairs, community outreach and community partnerships also don’t show up in job titles for lower-level jobs.

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After iPolitics obtained the document, the Ontario Cannabis Store again refused to answer any direct questions about the job.

In a statement, Winton maintained “the OCS is committed to transparency,” pointing to an annual report with an out of date organizational chart.

In a separate statement, the province suggested the responsibilities that Taverner would have covered are being handled by other staff members.

“As our government developed the retail and distribution model currently in place, the Ontario Cannabis Store evolved and followed an organizational design process and created a corporate security and resource protection team,” said spokesperson Robert Gibson.

“This team is led by a former senior police officer and is responsible for fraud prevention, engagement with local law enforcement and physical security.”

The government refused to provide the name of this person, their job title or disclose when they were hired.

Asked last week what the value of the job offered to Taverner was supposed to be, Finance Minister Vic Fedeli — whose department oversees the Ontario Cannabis Store — refused to directly comment. In response to 10 separate questions about the purpose of the job offered to Taverner and his department’s role in it, Fedeli said the “OCS is in charge of all of their hiring” and “has all of the information on the hiring.”

However, Wake’s report clearly shows in this case that the OCS wasn’t solely responsible for hiring senior personnel.

The premier’s office “identified the need to have someone with policing background on the OCS’s executive team,” reads the report.

[READ MORE: Ford government won’t commit to changing appointment process]

According to Wake’s interview with Taverner, Ford asked Taverner “if he would be interested in a position at the OCS and suggested the title of ‘President of Community Outreach’ for the position or something similar.”

Later, according to Wake, the province’s highest ranking bureaucrat, Steve Orsini, sent an email to the top official in the finance department, Greg Orencsak, with the subject line “Urgent: Ron Taverner.” In the email, sent Aug. 17, Wake said Orsini asked Orencsak to “ensure that the OCS made a written offer to Mr. Taverner by noon that day as the President of Community Affairs or something to which Mr. Taverner and the OCS could agree.”

“We would be lucky to get him for $270,000 a year,” Orsini wrote.

That day, the OCS offered Taverner a job with the title of president of community partnerships, at the salary level suggested by the government. He rejected the job offer on Sept. 10.

Patronage appointments are made in governments of all political stripes, but Lori Turnbull, the director of Dalhousie’s School of Public Administration said in an interview with iPolitics that by not filling the position after Taverner turned it down, there’s a “perception that we didn’t really need it.

“The perception is that this was an appointment for a particular person and not an appointment that was necessary for the public interest and needed to be filled,” she added.

Ford came to office last year on promises to “restore respect for taxpayers” and lead a government that will “put the people ahead of insiders and elites.” He also slammed the Liberals for coming up with policies that “benefit Liberal insiders and political elites.”

Turnbull said the premier’s “for the people” mandate clashes with Taverner’s job offer at the OCS.

“He campaigned ‘for the people’ and then he creates plum positions for friends and when the friend says ‘no,’ no one else gets to apply for it,” she said.

However, Turnbull added that it’s unlikely the impressions left by the Taverner job offer will hurt Ford’s brand because voters already suspect that this happens no matter who is in power.

“There’s a general cynicism or suspicion when it comes to politicians across the board,” she said.

“And so if people have a negative, distrustful attitude to politicians writ large, then when one of them demonstrates behaviour that’s consistent with a cynical or suspicious attitude, it doesn’t necessarily lead to electoral consequences for that individual.”

With files from Kirsten Smith

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