More of Peter Kelly’s verbal diarrhea

I’ve been collecting examples of mayor Peter Kelly’s evasive responses to direct questions. See here and here, for instance.

The following is a transcript of mayor Peter Kelly’s appearance on CBC Radio One’s Mainstreet last week. I’m indebted to Waye Mason, who slogged through the recording and produced the text below.


My only comment is that this is another example of Kelly’s verbal diarrhea—he simply spews out nonsensical responses that have no relation to the questions being asked, and hopes that we’re dim-witted enough to not get the schtick. I mean to soon to collect all of these on one place, just to more fully illustrate the point.

Note from Waye Mason: Peter Kelly is well known for having overcome a serious speech impediment, a significant and admirable achievement. When transcribing I felt it would be unfair to leave “uhms,” “ahs,” and pauses in, even when I felt they may have more to do with nervousness or prevarication. To get the feel off this interview, you really need to hear it and judge for yourself. Find it here.

Mayor Peter Kelly Calls CBC Mainstreet to discuss the concert cash scandal June 8, 2011, 5:15pm. Stephanie Domet: Mayor Peter Kelly joins us now by phone, Hi welcome back to Mainstreet.

Peter Kelly: Stephanie, how’re you doing?

SD: Did you do anything directly or indirectly to authorize or facilitate those cash payments to concert promoters?

PK: No.

SD: Were you onside with the idea, did you at any time suggest to the people involved that the payments were a good idea or that they ought to go ahead?

PK: No. Again what we tried to do is, ah, to bring forth an opportunity for concerts and clearly there was the demand from the public to, to try to certainly bring events here, and so with that in mindset, we went out and brought in people from New York, people from England and other partnerships to try to provide opportunities and that is how we got the Paul McCartney and that’s how we got the other events here to so it was to work with everyone to try and make things work and try and be able to bring what the public expected that we have here.

SD: So during all this, did you advocate the cash payments to the promoter as a way of make it all work?

PK: No again, there was contractual arrangements or understandings through the Trade Centre that things would be able to be forwarded or to be, uhm, advanced through that normal process because that was in the elements of those contracts as was in the Auditor General’s report, and it’s clear in there that what went on was not the proper checks and balances and for sure there is concurrence that we need to change, and there are 52 recommendations and we accept, or I accept, every single one of them.

SD: Why didn’t you inform council and the cities CFO about all this, at least at the point when you realized some of the money was unlikely to be repaid rather than sitting on the information until the end of the year?

PK: Not quite true. What happened is the Trade Centre came to our staff through the administration, and then went to the AG, the AG came to my office and we went directly to council to give them that information.

SD: Although the auditor general’s report says that “on September 20th, 2010 Mr. Anstey wrote to the mayor Kelly presumable in his capacity as a member of the Trade Centre Board, Mr Anstey wrote ‘Subject HEADS UP. I had a call from Grant MacDonald at TCL this weekend who told me that the auditors might raise the issue of the advances to Power Promotions and the unrecovered $356K at the Board/Audit meeting this week. I am passing this on so you are not taken by surprise.’” Trade Centre Limited sent an invoice to Halifax Regional Municipality addressed to Mr Anstey $359,550 about 10 days later, September 30th, so why didn’t you inform Council or the CFO last fall?

PK: I am also not on the Audit Committee of the Trade Centre, and what was going on also is that there was discussions with Ticket Atlantic to offset some of those costs as was indicated as well, and there was an understanding that that would be part of that offset, that never came to full fruition as evidenced by the invoice and when we knew the exact status of that situation it went to council.

SD: So you did not know the exact status of that situation on September 20th when you got that email?

PK: No, that was at that time as I understand it an approximation and we thought there was still more to come from Ticket Atlantic and that’s why when the information came forward from Trade Centre to the administrator, and then the AG came in and we had that dialog and took it too council.

SD: You were in the public eye involved in the effort to lure these big concerts. Did you benefit politically from the cash payment to the promoters if those payments were the only thing keeping the concerts from being cancelled?

PK: If you, I don’t believe so, with what’s going on now I don’t think there is any political advantage with this discussion, absolutely not, I think it comes as a disadvantage. For us its trying to bring events here, we want to be an event location, we are an event location, people want to come here, they want to go to events, and as mayor I believe I had a role and responsibility to try and make some of those dots connect with other opportunities and other promoters, and that is why we met with Donald K Donald, that is why we met the folks from CCG, and that is why we met with others trying to see if there is an opportunity that can’t only go to one area of Atlantic Canada but also come here as well.

SD: The auditor general’s report says that someone with your experience in public life should have known better, how does it feel to know there are citizens that no longer trust your ability to be mayor?

PK: Uh, again for me it is about understanding that errors were made. I have acknowledged and apologized for those and have said that I will continue to do the best that I can and learn from the mistakes of the past and make sure that this never happens again and that is where I’ll be staying focused and it is to ensure that we accept the 52 recommendations of the auditor general.

SD: You said errors were made, did you make any errors?

PK: And, eh, certainly by not asking the questions as was indicated to the by the auditor general’s report and certainly we need to ask a lot more questions as we move forward.

SD: Is it enough to apologize when you signed contracts that had not been vetted by the legal department and money is not being paid back to the citizens of Halifax?

PK: With regard to the contracts in question they were vetted by the legal, and they are there, and they have those stamps on them, there were a couple that came directly from administration and not through legal and that certainly has changed to our process here (SD speaks over PK “The auditor general’s report…” and PK continues) ..and we clearly acknowledge that there were errors made, I have apologized for them, and we are moving forward.

SD: The auditor generals report says some of those contracts weren’t stamped until after you signed them, and at least one stamped contract was changed without anyone informing the legal department. Why did you sign contracts that weren’t approved by the legal department?

PK: Contracts come in here in the past at different approaches, we have clearly marked that as a concern, clearly the auditor did as well, and lessons learned, we’ll make sure, and a clear understand also, because there is different interpretations if you read through that report of what “approved to form” means or “approved to content” and we are now working with the administration and with Legal to make sure there is a clear definition and there is full confidence that whatever is in that contract can be adhered to and it is all according to law.

SD: How concerned are you about the possibility that you could be held liable for some of the money still outstanding if it was given to the promoter under a contract you signed without legal approval.

PK: Again you have information that I have no information about, so I would say that is something that I would have to wait and see further, I will work with the legal folk who are try and recapture what we can, and we’re also trying to make sure that we learn from this and implement the elements that are laid out there by the AG.

SD: What do you say to citizens, mayor Kelly, for whom it is not enough to say there were lessons learned, when $359,000 of taxpayers money is gone with little hope of repayment?

PK: And Stephanie I would like to do and offer a whole lot more other than, I apologize, we have learned from these mistakes, errors have been made, they will not happen again, we are moving forward, and we will make sure we will implement the AG’s recommendations.

SD: Peter Kelly, thank you for speaking with us today.

PK: Anytime thank you have a great afternoon. [hangs up].

This article appears in Jun 16-22, 2011.