Toronto Sun reporter joining Mayor John Tory’s staff

Toronto Sun reporter Don Peat is leaving his position at the newspaper to join Mayor John Tory’s staff.

He will become director of communications, replacing Amanda Galbraith, the mayor’s office said Thursday.

Peat will start on Dec. 5.

Galbraith’s last day is Dec. 16. In the New Year, she will join public relations firm Navigator. Navigator briefly represented Jian Ghomeshi in 2014, but dropped him as a client as more women came forward with allegations of sexual assault.

Galbraith said that she “will be a lead in their crisis and issues management practice as well as help with the expansion of their municipal affairs practice across Canada.

“I will play a role on the mayor’s 2018 campaign and help with the planning for the campaign,” she added.

Tory’s office said Peat is “no stranger” to City Hall and joked in a news release that “he also gets up early, which will help.”

Peat was the Sun’s City Hall bureau chief from 2010 to 2015, covering Rob Ford’s term as mayor. He became the assistant city editor last year. In an article, the Sun said he was known to colleagues as “Pistol Peat” and that he was one of the “very best of a new breed of multimedia journalists who could do it all.”