

Chris Fox, CP24.com





Mayoral candidate Doug Ford is accusing John Tory of covering up his tenure on the board of a major American telecommunications company that filed for bankruptcy under his watch.

Tory served on the board of directors for Charter Communications between 2001 and 2009 when the firm sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection amid an estimated $20 billion in debt .

Though Tory’s role on the board is publically available information, it is not mentioned in any of his campaign materials or on the resume he has posted to Linkedin and on Wednesday Ford accused the rival candidate of “not being transparent” and launched a new attack ad that slammed Tory for being “intimately involved with one of the largest bankruptcies in American history.”

It should be noted that Forbes listed the Charter Communications bankruptcy as the 14th largest on record in the period after the recession began in 2007; not one of the largest overall.

“I would like to ask Mr. Tory why there is no mention of his eight years at Charter Communications on his resume,” Ford said. “Applying to be the mayor of Toronto, Canada’s economic engine and biggest city, is a serious business. It means being in charge of a $12 billion dollar budget and the people deserve to know who they are electing.”

Charter Communications cut about 40 per cent of its debt load by filing for bankruptcy protection in February, 2009 and today stands as the fourth-largest cable provider in the U.S. with 27.6 million customers.

In a statement released by Tory’s campaign, Microsoft co-founder and Charter Communications Founder Paul Allen said the company’s past troubles had nothing to do with Tory and “arose from events that pre-dated” his time.

Allen then went on to praise Tory as an “effective and valued contributor to the Charter Communications Board.”

Ford, however, noted that Tory sat on the audit committee while with Charter and would have had a role in the company’s financial troubles, a criticism which was echoed by fellow candidate Olivia Chow as she spoke with reports ahead of a town hall at George Brown College Wednesday afternoon.

“John Tory was supposed to clean up the mess and he didn’t clean up any mess; just like I don’t believe he would clean up the mess at city hall,” Chow said.

Tory was asked about his time with Charter Communications while speaking with reporters outside city hall Wednesday and said he came into a “very difficult situation.” and did his best to “clean it up.”

Tory then provided more context while speaking with reporters ahead of the town hall at George Brown College, suggesting Charter’s problems arose from several takeovers that occurred before he joined the board.

“The problem is simply this. The company in the course of going out and acquiring cable systems before my time had run up a huge debt in so doing,” he said. “We came into an almost untenable situation and fought hard for a number of years to try to fix it but the debt was there and it was huge and it ultimately caused the company to seek protection.”

Tory added that he would stack his resume up against Doug Ford’s “any day of the week.”

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