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Law Times • June 14, 2010 and-wife team in federal politics, were to hit the boards again at the Commons ethics committee last Wednesday. But it didn't happen. Two days Guergis secrecy may H relate to Mulroney The elena Guergis and Ra- him Jaffer, the most entertaining husband- Hill By Richard Cleroux before the show, Guergis, who had been so eager to tell her story, came down with health concerns and said she wouldn't make it. She wasn't making it up. Guergis wanted so much to find out why Prime Minister Stephen Harper had dumped her from cabinet. Her ab- sence had to have been for a good health reason. Guergis told Peter Mansbridge on TV her firing was perhaps because Harper didn't like Jaffer. I'm not so sure. It had to be something better than that. You don't call in the RCMP to investigate her because you don't like someone's husband. It's better to simply not invite them over to 24 Sus- sex Drive for supper anymore. Harper has refused to tell her or the public why he dumped her. Not telling the public is understandable in Harper's case. Transparency is not his strong suit. In fact, it's not his suit at all. Still, Jaffer had promised to thrill us last Wednesday with live- ly accounts of his non-lobbying for a chunk of the $100-million green energy fund, the one handled by Transport Minister John Baird and his aides. Since he was last before the committee a month ago, it has come out that Jaffer and his sidekick (and fellow failed Conservative candidate from the last election), Patrick Glémaud, had been to see not just one but five more Tory cabinet ministers with brainy schemes to extract use- ful slips of green printed paper from the fund. For a pair of non-lobbyists, the boys sure got around. But 24 hours before he was to testify, Jaffer sent a note. He had de- cided to change legal counsel, and his new lawyer needed time to get up to speed on the case. So there was no Jaffer either on Wednesday afternoon. Did somebody get to the couple to tell them it wasn't in their best interests to show up with health concerns or an unprepared lawyer? Did they tell Guergis something about what she'd done that would have been enough to make her sick? That's certainly a health concern. What we know is that Harper had his most trusted aide, Dimitri Soudas, put down on paper for the RCMP exactly what it is of a criminal nature the prime minister thinks Guergis did that deserved getting her fired and investigated by the cops. The Liberals have been demanding to see that letter to the Mounties. They believe it spells out in clear legal language — Criminal Code refer- ences and all — the exact nature of the crime Harper thinks was com- mitted. They want a copy of the letter tabled in the House of Commons. That's so the public can see it. The ethics committee members came up with the final stroke. They voted to order Soudas to testify before the committee and tell them ex- actly what he wrote to the Mounties on Harper's behalf. But Harper has ordered Soudas not to testify. He even made up a new rule. From now on, political aides to Conservative cabinet ministers don't have to testify before parliamentary committees or obey subpoenas. That makes things a lot easier for Harper and his government. Only cabinet ministers will be able to testify and only when Harper says they can. So it's back to that mysterious letter to the cops. Could the secrecy be due to another legal issue, similar to the one fac- ing former justice minister Allan Rock in 1996, when he had a trusted public servant write a nasty letter to German authorities alleging Brian Mulroney was a crook in cahoots with arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber? Actually, it was true Mulroney had taken thousands in cash from Schreiber and that the two were working in business together, but back in 1996 he had yet to admit that. Rock didn't know that either, so he settled out of court and forked over $2.1 million in damages to Mulroney. Harper probably doesn't want to make that nasty letter to the cops public that he had Soudas write about Guergis for fear he could end up as another Allan Rock paying out libel damages to her. She and hubby Jaffer could be dancing all the way to the bank. The evidence so far is that all Harper had against Guergis is what Soudas reported lawyer Arthur Hamilton had told him. Hamilton, of course, got his information from Toronto private detective Derrick Snowdy, who testified under oath that he didn't tell the lawyer very much and, in fact, had said nothing at all about anything criminal that Guergis might have done. For his part, Hamilton told the committee last week Guergis knows what the allegations are. Nevertheless, the public remains largely in the dark on the issue. If there is something against Guergis, maybe there'll be a leak to one of the five Conservative MPs on the ethics committee to con- front her with, right to her face, as soon as she's well again. The case is worth following. LT Richard Cleroux is a freelance reporter and columnist on Parliament Hill. His e-mail address is richardcleroux@rogers.com. COMMENT Exit 438-86: Bylaw reform in Toronto old heritage of many aspects of real property law, the introduction of mu- nicipal zoning bylaws is a comparatively new phenom- enon. In Ontario, the passage E of the Planning Act in 1946 paved the way for modern comprehensive zoning bylaws in the province. In fact, the former township of Etobicoke entered the record books as Ontario's first planned community with the passage of its first zoning bylaw and official plan in 1949. North York and the former city of Toronto soon followed suit with their own bylaws in 1952. York, East York, and Scarborough made similar moves by the end of the late 1950s. Of course, most of the lawyers who deal with real estate in the Greater Toronto Area are gen- erally quite familiar with the ubiquitous City of Toronto bylaw 438-86, Toronto's general comprehensive zoning rules. At the same time, those same real estate lawyers are also all too familiar with how genuinely piecemeal and not comprehensive bylaw 438-86 really is. In fact, it's only one of more than 40 such comprehen- sive zoning bylaws that still affect various parts of Toronto. Many of these local rules are really just carry-overs from the municipalities that amalgamated to form the megacity in 1998. According to an overview presentation of the new comprehensive zoning bylaw released in November, the patchwork of applicable zon- ing rules was actually more than just a lingering legacy from pre-amalgamation. In fact, even when the six municipalities were issuing their own comprehensive zoning bylaws, there were still pockets of the city that, through histori- cal happenstance, were still governed by local neighbourhood zoning rules. Many of these lo- cal neighbourhood bylaws survived amalgama- tion and are still applicable to this day. To the relief of many, Toronto is on the verge of seeing its way out of this desert with the pending introduction of its first major comprehensive zoning overhaul as an amal- gamated city. Planning for the new bylaw be- gan in earnest at about this time last year when the city officially announced its intention to harmonize these competing zoning rules. Af- ter numerous internal staff reports and pre- sentations and eight public open houses, the latest revised draft of this new zoning bylaw was released on May 10. Paraphrasing the overview presentation, the new zoning bylaw was drafted using a staff-based approach with a view to preserv- ing the true intent of all of the existing rules while at the same time harmonizing the terms and language used therein and conforming all current uses with those dictated by the latest official plan. The new zoning bylaw also intro- duces thoroughly modern parking and loading Web Correspondence REFORMS ILL-CONCEIVED It has been my privilege to serve for the last 15 years, at the pleasure of the electorate, as one of the few solicitors at Convocation. In my experi- ence as a bencher and in other capacities, I have never observed a worse, more cynical process leading to a worse, more dispiriting debate and in turn leading to a worse, more ill-conceived set of recommendations than the now-adopted blunders of the governance task force. In terms of process, real and timely debate was www.lawtimesnews.com ven hardcore real estate practitioners forget just how recent zoning bylaws are. Juxtaposed against the millennia- The Dirt standards throughout the city and will curb what had been cases of inconsistent applica- tion, interpretation, and enforcement of some city regulations by converting frequently ap- plied rules into fixed provi- sions based on best practices. While the overall impact By Jeffrey W. Lem of this legislative reform seems more evolutionary than revolutionary, with the consistent underlying theme of harmonization and con- solidation throughout, there are some new provisions that go beyond those notions. For instance, the height of homes will now be mea- sured to the true top of the roof rather than the arguably counterintuitive midpoint, as is currently permitted under bylaw 438-86, but with a new higher standard of 10 metres for the maximum height of homes. Likewise, there will be new formulas for the calculation of yard setbacks along with an outright ban on reverse- sloping driveways and below-grade garages. Even the logistics of bylaw maintenance will change under this new zoning bylaw. Al- though periodic consolidations of bylaw 438- 86 have been available electronically for some time, the new zoning rules will be online from the beginning. This will increase ease of ac- cess, improve customer service, and allow for up-to-date content currently anticipated to be in real time as of the very latest council meet- ings. The city is betting that one truly com- prehensive zoning bylaw using a universally common set of terms will eventually lead to significantly clearer interpretation and more consistent results for all Torontonians. Of course, the accumulated wisdom of prac- titioners familiar with the soon-to-be-supersed- ed bylaw 438-86 is not yet obsolete. The new zoning bylaw will include a number of provi- sions that grandfather existing non-compliant properties. Also, in cases where a property continues a use that's currently lawful under bylaw 438-86 but won't be permitted under the new zoning rules, the doctrine of legal non- conforming use will still apply. There's nothing in the draft zoning bylaw that seems intended to curtail such uses. One final meeting of the planning and growth management committee is scheduled to take place on June 16 to discuss amend- ments to the draft bylaw before it goes to coun- cil. Although the online commenting feature that had been available throughout the devel- opment of the new rules is no longer opera- tional, Torontonians are still entitled to make written submissions to the clerk's office before the June 16 meeting as long as they're signed and include a return mailing address. Toronto, your brave new zoning world awaits. LT Jeffrey W. Lem is a partner in the real estate group at Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP. His e-mail address is jlem@dwpv.com. deliberately prevented; support- ing reasons were trumped up; compelling counter arguments were studiously ignored; numbers were flung about as red herrings; demonstrable and valuable assets were thrown away without any supporting rationale; the weeds of misconcep- tions were allowed to crowd out the flowers of provable facts; and disdain was shown for views that did not square with the mad myopia of those pushing hard for these changes. The fact that it was done by good people I like makes it all the harder to accept. Comment on lawtimesnews.com by Bradley Wright about "LSUC passes 'defective' bylaw." PAGE 7