It was, in its day, the “sexiest” municipal scandal in years, called “endlessly titillating” and “steamy.” And that was just one columnist’s assessment for one newspaper. That was the Bellamy Inquiry, whose final report was released 10 years ago last month—an anniversary that was noted quietly by some but mostly ignored in a city that’s since moved on to bigger and more bombastic scandals.

“I did send an email around to my former staff,” says retired Justice Denise Bellamy. “But life goes on, people do other things.”

It’s a philosophical outlook on the anniversary of a report that’s done a lot to shape the current City of Toronto, and whose legacy has far outlived the scandal that sparked it (and the careers of politicians and staff implicated in its pages.)

The Final Report of the Toronto Computer Leasing Inquiry, abbreviated as the Bellamy Report, was made public on September 12, 2005, and its findings explained how council’s decision to approve a $45 million contract for computer equipment ballooned into an $85 million contract for MFP Financial Services Ltd.

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“Nobody had a lot of love for computer leasing of all things, but by the end people like Jim Coyle of the Toronto Star was calling it the ‘sexiest inquiry ever’,” says Bellamy.

The Bellamy report would unearth stories of lobbying, affairs, and councillors being treated to lavish gifts for their favour. It would also make 241 recommendations for council, the large majority of which were implemented by council and staff under then-Mayor David Miller and City Manager Shirley Hoy.

The cost of holding the inquiry itself was $19 million. In three and a half years, the inquiry heard from 156 witnesses in 214 days of hearings, sixty different lawyers, and 124,000 pages of documents. Bellamy produced three volumes: one on facts and findings of the inquiry, one on recommended reforms for good governance at the City, and a third explaining the logistics of how she established and operated the public inquiry, to help out future inquiries so they didn’t have to reinvent the wheel.

Ward 33 Councillor Shelley Carroll says councillors elected in 2006 and after—the post-Bellamy period—don’t understand the difference the report made the way one of the largest governments in Canada runs its affairs.

“It’s impossible to describe life before to new staff and councillors,” says Carroll, who was first elected in 2003. “There was all the salacious stuff, but the impact goes much deeper.”

Carroll says when she served as Public Works committee chair in pre-Bellamy days meetings would be dominated by contractors who claimed to have been unfairly ignored by Toronto’s staff or councillors in favour of better-connected contractors.

“They had every right to complain, because our accounting systems were a mess. They were really easily contested. But that never happens anymore. It just doesn’t happen, it’s amazing.”

At least as importantly, Bellamy’s report provided a guide for when it is appropriate for council to approve items like contracts without a competitive bidding process, rules that guide council to this day.

Bellamy found that the bureaucratic chaos created by amalgamating the six former cities of Metro Toronto into one megacity had offered fertile ground to lobbyists and unscrupulous staff, who would steer contracts to firms like MFP.

“It was a mess, actually. It was a difficult time to be working there,” Bellamy says. “It was amazing how different the six cities were, and how differently they did things.”

The remedies recommended by Bellamy included the establishment of a lobbyist registry, the strengthening of codes of conduct for councillors and staff, and the creation of an Integrity Commissioner to enforce the Code of Conduct. The province also passed the City of Toronto Act in the wake of the report. It made accountability officers including the Integrity Commissioner mandatory, meaning city council doesn’t have the power to abolish them.

While Bellamy’s fact-finding and recommendations have had a strong influence on the City (former Mayor Rob Ford has had serial encounters with the Integrity Commissioner, including one that nearly cost him his job) the third volume of her report—on the actual mechanics of holding a public inquiry—have been cited far beyond the walls of Toronto City Hall.

A short list of recent Canadian public inquiries that cited Bellamy’s work or thanked her for her assistance includes: The Ipperwash Inquiry, the Oliphant Commission, the Cohen Inquiry on salmon in British Columbia, and the inquiry into the roof collapse at the Algo Mall in Elliot Lake.

“I’m very proud that part of the report has had legs,” says Bellamy, who noted that despite Canada’s abundant history of public and Crown inquiries hers was the first to provide a comprehensive report on how an effective commission is built.

As it turns out, that volume might never have been written if Bellamy hadn’t been sued by two of the people her report would eventually embarrass: then-councillor Tom Jakobek and lobbyist Jeff Lyons. Lyons and Jakobek sued unsuccessfully to try and prevent testimony against them from being heard at the inquiry, which halted all of the inquiry’s investigative work.

Bellamy opted to keep her staff working on the inquiry process volume (which wasn’t delayed by the lawsuits) saying “we were paying all these staff anyway, so it ended up being a great opportunity.”

Despite the changes it brought to the City, and to public inquiries across the country, one of the stars of the Bellamy Report says he’s not sure it was worth the money.

Bas Balkissoon was a Toronto city councilor from 1998 to 2005 and is now an MPP at Queen’s Park. He was singled out in Bellamy’s report as the person who first started asking questions about the City’s computer leasing contract. But his feelings about the Bellamy Inquiry a decade later are mixed.

“The report was good, personally I think it could’ve been tougher,” Balkissoon says. “I was disappointed that public inquiries really don’t have a lot of teeth. If someone asked me to vote for one again at the cost of nearly $20 million I’d say no.”

“If people aren’t going to be charged, if people aren’t going to have to cop to their mistakes, what are you really going to get out of that process?”

The Ontario Provincial Police investigated whether any of the findings of the Bellamy Inquiry supported criminal charges, but dropped their investigation in 2010. While criminal prosecution requires the government prove its case “beyond a reasonable doubt,” public inquiries aren’t bound by the same standard of evidence—Bellamy only required a “balance of probability.”

For his part, Balkissoon worries new MFP-like scandals might be brewing at City Hall but festering without council attention.

“The audits that are being done aren’t as detailed as they used to be,” says Balkissoon, who concedes he watches events at City Hall from afar. “I think what’s happened is councillors are more worried about their presence in the media.”

Carroll, for her part, says when councillors cite Bellamy’s work at City Hall today the main effect is on staff, who have the legal guidelines to stand up to improper political pressure.

“You can’t ever have a magical inquiry that produces sharp 90-degree turns in politics. Politics is politics,” she says. “But Bellamy stabilized the City, stabilized it to the point that councillors carrying on can’t damage things as much anymore.”

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