A senior member of Mayor John Tory (open John Tory's policard)’s staff has been scolded by Toronto’s lobbyist registrar for activities as a lobbyist at city hall in 2012.

In a report released Thursday, Linda Gehrke found Tory’s principal secretary Vic Gupta and Kim Wright, at the time both were working for Sussex Strategy Group, put a city staff member in an apparent conflict of interest.

To settle the matter, Sussex agreed to properly report its lobbying activity, have lobbyists attend training sessions on the rules and consult with Gehrke’s office on a “compliance protocol” to prevent further breaches.

In a statement to the Star, Tory said he expects his staff to operate with the “highest standards of integrity” but it’s not reasonable to expect perfection.

“The lobbyist registrar has confirmed that this was an unintentional, inadvertent circumstance. Nevertheless, Mr. Gupta has expressed regret over this incident. Mr. Gupta continues to have my full support.”

Gupta and Wright, on behalf of a charity, lobbied a city employee who was writing a report with recommendations to city council on dealing with clothing donation boxes.

Some councillors wanted the boxes banned. Gupta and Wright told the city employee about the importance of box revenue to their client’s charitable activities, and suggested ways to identify legitimate charities.

The problem is that the city employee is married to a colleague of Gupta and Wright who also lobbies city officials for Sussex.

Sussex representatives told the registrar the firm tried to build an “ethical wall” around the staff member’s spouse, so he had no connection to the file.

Also, Gupta lobbied under the firm name Prime Strategies, a company he sold to Sussex in 2011 when he became a Sussex employee.

The city employee said she knew Wright was her husband’s colleague, at one point saying she couldn’t deal with her on the issue, but never knew that Gupta also worked alongside her husband.

Council adopted the city staffer’s recommendations in November 2012, establishing permit fees for the boxes but no ban.

Gupta, through lawyer Jack Siegel, argued his unreported May 17, 2012 meeting with the employee was a “consultation” exempt from lobbying rules. But after being shown “additional emails,” Siegel acknowledged the original intent of the meeting was lobbying but said it turned into something “a bit different.”

Gehrke disagreed. Even though the employee didn’t know Gupta worked at Sussex, she concluded, there could be the appearance of a conflict between the employee’s connection to the firm lobbying her on an issue, and her public duty in writing a report for council on the same issue.

In other news:

Gehrke found that Apollo Health and Beauty Care, a client of Rob and Doug Ford’s family firm, improperly lobbied the then-mayor and city councillor. She said Apollo, whose employees are registered lobbyists, breached the rules by inviting the Fords to an August 2012 tennis match and dinner — but found that rule-breaking was “inadvertent and unintentional.”

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Apollo’s invitation, accepted by Doug Ford and his mother Diane, “is reasonably seen as part of (a) lobbying effort,” to get help at city hall, Gehrke wrote. A separate report on whether the former mayor and councillor improperly used their influence at city hall to help Apollo has yet to be released.

Rookie Councillor Stephen Holyday (open Stephen Holyday's policard) wants the city manager to study collapsing the four city watchdog positions created in the wake of the MFP computer leasing scandal into two positions.

Holyday wants an investigation of “opportunities for synergy and efficiency” from having one person be both auditor general and ombudsman, and another be both integrity commissioner and lobbyist registrar.

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