Lawyer’s letter alleges ‘conspiracy’ to unlawfully fire Nikki Kaur from Brampton
Published October 26, 2022 at 7:17 pm
Legal paperwork regarding mayoral candidate Nikki Kaur’s firing from the City of Brampton, a day after losing the mayor’s chains to Patrick Brown, alleges a conspiracy among the city’s higher-ups to unlawfully dismiss her.
The paperwork, a preservation letter obtained by Insauga, says, “it is clear that Ms. Kaur’s dismissal was targeted retaliation and formed part of a larger conspiracy against her involving senior staff at the City and the Mayor’s Office.”
“Specifically, Ms. Kaur’s termination is the culmination of a long conspiracy among senior City officials to silence her persistent efforts to expose wrongdoing and possible corruption in the City’s administration,” it continues.
Kaur has been making headlines in Brampton on and off for years. Back in 2019, she reached out to councillors and the media with allegations of wrongdoing in awarding contracts, discrimination, bullying and hiring practices.
The City brought in the auditing firm Deloitte to investigate the allegations. In 2021, they found no wrongdoing in city hall regarding these allegations. Kaur was fired and rehired during the process.
Then back in the spring of 2022, during investigations into missing documents surrounding the Brampton University project and the controversy around $629,000 in consulting fees, Kaur again came forward with misconduct allegations.
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She said she was instructed to pay $30,000 in connection to the Brampton U project on her first day working for the city. Furthermore, she alleged councillor Rowena Santos screamed at her in front of other city staffers over the project.
Santos denied this, saying it may have been a misunderstanding. The matter was forwarded to the city’s integrity commissioner who found no wrongdoing had occurred. Santos was just re-elected to her Ward 1 and 5 seat on Monday.
In August, just prior to the deadline, Kaur filed papers to run for mayor on a stated quest to end “four years of scandal, mismanagement and failed leadership at city hall.”
Incumbent Mayor Patrick Brown had already thrown his hat in the ring for re-election following his ejection from the Conservative leadership race. He was removed from the running in that election after the party learned of “serious allegations of wrongdoing” against their financing rules.
In her announcement address, Kaur came out hard against Brown’s leadership of the Brampton citing a then-recent motion to cancel investigations into the Brampton University project, cancelling recent council meetings, and his failed Conservative Party leadership bid. Brown has denied any wrongdoing.
Ultimately Kaur placed second behind Brown in the mayoral race on October 24. She pulled 25.5 per cent of the vote to Brown’s 59.6 per cent.
“This afternoon, without explanation or notice, I was terminated from my employment at the City of Brampton,” Kaur said in a statement. “Patrick Brown has once again tried to silence me for alleging wrongdoing and mismanagement at City Hall.”
Brown spoke to NEWSTALK 1010 after the news broke saying he wouldn’t comment on a personal matter and that Chief Administration Officer Paul Morrison or the city offices would have made that call.
On October 25, Kaur was fired from the City a second time. She has retained lawyers to fight the firing in an unlawful dismissal suit. She launched her opening a salvo on October 26 with the preservation letter.
These letters are common in such suits. The letter serves as notice to involved parties about the lawsuit and instructs them to preserve any and all records associated with the case.
These include any emails, text, whatsapp and signal messages, memos or non-written records regarding Kaur’s first dismissal in 2021, her leave of absence to run for Mayor and the second dismissal on Tuesday. It also calls for the preservation of complete city-owned computer contents.
The letter lists a eleven city staffers to retain records including;
- Mayor Patrick Brown
- Srikanthan “Babu” Nagalingam, Chief of Staff of the Mayor
- Gary Collins, Director of Communications, Office of the Mayor
- Sri Vallipuranathar, Senior Advisor to the Mayor
- Yeshwa Younas, Executive Assistant to the Mayor
- Paul Morrison, Interim Chief Administrative Officer
- Peter Fay, City Clerk
- Nick Gahunia, Bylaw Employee and Mayor’s Driver and Personal Assistant
- Diana Soos, Commissioner of Legislative Services
- Bill Boyes, Fire Chief
- Jason Schmidt-Shoukri, Commissioner, Planning, Building & Growth Management
In reference to earlier concerns regarding missing documents the letter reads, “Given Mr. Brown’s history, we expect that you will take immediate and proactive steps to preserve the records of the Mayor’s Office and in particular Mr. Brown’s records.”
Under the Rules of Civil Procedure the city is required to maintain all these records now that they have been requested should they be needed for evidence discovery in court.
Should they fail to do so, the letter reads, Kuar will be able to file for spoliation, or a deliberate attempt to destroy evidence. Such a failure could be used as evidence of the City’s wrongdoing in and of itself.
The city has three business days to confirm the records have been preserved.
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