The Ontario Integrity Commissioner says that a former first -level employee of Prime Minister Doug Ford broke the lobbying rules.
Amin Massoudi now directs Atlas Strategic Advisors, but previously served as Ford main secretary until 2022.
The Office of the Integrity Commissioner Cathryn Motherwell published a non -compliance notice on its website this week, saying that Massoudi did not comply with the lobbying rules during a phone call in 2023.
The notice says that Massaudi was not registered after pressing a holder of a public office on a customer application during a call.
The integrity commissioner says that Massaudi knows to the unidentified person knowingly in a possible conflict of interest because Massaudi had offered the same holder of the public office a ticket to a Basketball game of Toronto Raptors the day before.
Massaudi says in a statement that he relates to a phone call to an medium -level employee in a minister’s office, and when a topic that Massoudi was not a registered lobbyist, he says he immediately informed the staff member and said that a colleague continued.
“At that time, I believed that this was the appropriate way to handle the situation,” Massaudi wrote.
“This experience has been an invaluable learning opportunity. I continue extremely seriously all the relevant legislation. In the last two years, I have taken concrete measures to strengthen internal compliance protocols and ensure that nothing like this happens again.”
