Patrick Brown ‘vindicated’ after Brampton integrity commissioner ends investigation

Brampton’s integrity commissioner has ended an investigation into Mayor Patrick Brown’s use of city staff working on his political campaign.

The investigation began after right-wing outlet Rebel Media posted a video back on June 9, alleging Brown was using city-paid staff on his Conservative leadership campaign.

In a lengthy explanation released on Thursday, the integrity commissioner said in part “we are unable to find that the mayor breached the code of conduct as alleged.”

In its disposition letter, the commissioner noted that seven members of the mayor’s office staff were engaged in working for his leadership campaign “at one point or another during normal working hours.” However, it also found that electronic time records for Brown’s office staff showed that all of the time worked was recorded as vacation or lieu time or, in one case, a leave of absence.

The commissioner noted that staff are permitted to volunteer their time for election campaign related work if they are on vacation or take a leave of absence.

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In a statement released Thursday afternoon, Brown said he was ‘vindicated’ after the integrity commissioner’s conclusions show “I did nothing wrong.”

“The allegations came from a bogus story from Rebel Media, and pushed by Elaine Moore, and both should apologize to all the City staff they smeared with false allegations,” said Brown. “Their story was motivated by politics and not truth, and the entire investigation was a waste of taxpayer money.”