Joe Swan, the former Orchestra London boss who resigned last month, is defending the beleaguered organization’s hiring of his teenage son to help make the case for a new downtown concert hall.

The longtime former city council member and failed mayoral candidate is also standing by his role with the orchestra, now on the edge of bankruptcy.

Speaking out for the first time since he quit, and after weeks of not replying to Free Press questions about the now-doomed organization, Swan opened up this week about his four-year term as executive director, which ended with his Dec. 16 resignation.

“It sure as heck isn’t bad management” that led to the orchestra’s financial demise, he said.

Swan addressed the $350,000 donation that fell apart last year, sinking the orchestra financially.

When it didn’t arrive as expected in June, Swan — then still a city councillor, before his fall mayoral run — said he continued to seek it and also combed all his contacts for replacement donations.

It was only after one final pitch in early December, Swan says, that he concluded the donation wasn’t coming through.The Free Press subsequently uncovered the orchestra’s financial woes.

“(Until then) there was no reason to believe we wouldn’t meet our revenue targets,” he said.

The fiscal year that ended in June 2014 also was hurt by falling ticket revenue and corporate and individual donations, he added.

In December, the orchestra cancelled shows, shut its doors and Swan resigned. City council rejected a plea to give it a $375,000 cash infusion and bankruptcy looms.

Employees are owed $180,000 in unpaid wages and ticket-­holders spent $280,000 for shows that have been cancelled. Another $110,000 in payroll deductions wasn’t submitted to the federal tax collector, money the government could, under law, seek by going after orchestra board members.

Amid the financial turmoil,The Free Pressuncovered records that show Swan’s teen son, an elite ballet dancer, was paid $1,500 by Orchestra London in 2013 to help build the business case for a new, publicly funded downtown concert hall.

Swan defends the decision to pay his son and another teen to help develop the business plan.

“They did an exceptional job,” he said, noting his son was helping to make the concert hall dance-recital-friendly. “(My son) was hired because he had knowledge in that area. That’s what he does.”

Asked if he believes training to be an elite dancer qualifies his son to recommend what a music venue must do to support dance, Swan insisted it does.

Asked if it was wrong in any case to hire a relative, Swan admitted some might see that as an issue but still stood his ground.

“I’ll leave it to others to judge,” he said.

At the time the hiring was first reported, critics thought it was poor optics.

Two Ivey business school professors at Western University, specialists in business ethics, agreed Friday.

“If you are in a position of authority and you have the potential to exercise control over other people’s money, you don’t do it to promote the interests of your family,” said David J. Sharp.

Swan says he didn’t hire his son — the orchestra did. But Sharp said the distinction is debatable.

“Orchestras don’t hire, people hire,” Sharp said.

“He should have known, or he most certainly ought to have known, that his son was being hired and furthermore that was a clear conflict of interest.”

Another Ivey professor, Mary Crossan, said she could only comment generally without knowing the facts.

Still, she said, organizations have to appear to be independent of any hint of nepotism.

“Whether unethical or not, nepotism undermines the credibility of organizations because employees and other stakeholders question whether the best person has been selected for the position,” she said.

Another issue is whether Swan’s son was the best person for the job, something Sharp questions.

“There’s no indication that Joe Swan’s son was in any way an expert in the design of halls,” he said.

At the time of the $1,500 payout to his son, the summer of 2013, Swan was a city councillor and the orchestra’s executive director.

The orchestra was part of a consortium, Music London, that was competing with the Grand Theatre for public support — and potentially more than $45 million in public money — to lead construction of a new performing arts centre to replace Centennial Hall.

An Orchestra London invoice, submitted for repayment to Music London, lists $7,395.44 paid to four people involved in the then-nascent project. Swan himself was paid $1,374.38 for “meeting space/business plan printing.”

Another $1,500 went to his son, then 17 or 18 and attending an elite Toronto ballet school.

The invoice is dated Aug. 29, 2013, and indicates the orchestra sought repayment from Music London. Orchestra board president Joe O’Neill, who was heavily involved in Music London, has said he suspects the money was repaid, but isn’t sure.

Mere weeks later, Music London unveiled its concert hall proposal to a room of about 100 Londoners. Former police chief Murray Faulkner was the face of the presentation, but has been clear recently that he knew nothing of the payment to Swan’s son.

Gina Barber, a political blogger and former city politician, said the hiring of Swan’s son can’t help but raise political eyebrows.

“The optics are really bad,” said Barber, an Orchestra London season ticket-holder.

“It’s a 17-year-old kid and however talented he might be, he doesn’t have the kind of credentials that you would expect to be hiring someone as a consultant.”

The Free Press has not been able to obtain comment from Swan’s son.

With files by Jane Sims, Free Press reporter

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JOE SWAN SPEAKS OUT

More of what he told The Free Press

HOW THE ORCHESTRA money was HANDLED

Its single bank account meant the orchestra couldn’t segregate money for different purposes. When a person or business donated money, even if they did so hoping for a new concert hall, that money would be used for any orchestra-related expense determined by Swan and the board. The orchestra administration was tiny, just six employees, too small to create distinct bank accounts for different purposes, Swan said. So while fundraisers might talk about the need to build a new concert hall, and a donor might ask that his or her money be used for that purpose, the orchestra made clear that in the end it would spend donations however it saw fit. No donor complained to him about the lack of dedicated funds during his four years at the orchestra, Swan said. “We have no donor-directed funds,” he said.

ON WHAT KILLED ORCHESTRA LONDON

The orchestra didn’t fail because of its management or volunteers, he says; it failed because no orchestra could raise enough corporate donations when it plays in a venue — Centennial Hall — that Swan compared to a school gym and called the worst in Canada. The lack of corporate donations created a gap: Yearly revenue stalled at between $1.8 million and $1.9 million while costs were at $2.2 million. The orchestra needs $500,000 a year in corporate donors but instead gets between $100,000 to $125,000. Big companies see no value in taking clients to a third-class venue, Swan said. “It’s bad for their image.” Unable to break even and facing an inherited debt, the orchestra had no margin for another big shortfall. “It was not bad volunteers or bad management. You have to give your head a shake,” he said. “London has the highest-cost experience in the worst concert hall in Canada. We’re a damn good city. We deserve (a new music venue).”