a disturbing email

Posted On October 25, 2022

This is a disturbing email that I received from a bylaw officer here in Brampton.

Hello Everyone,

It is with a lot of struggle with my inner self that I am reporting the state of the fear, stress and lowest morale in the entire By law service department . The people responsible for this mess are the management . Racism has been a silent thing in our department but it takes place every day – sometimes it is hidden under the processes and policies which are not inclusive of visible minorities and other times it is blunt . I will only specify some important details here .

In 2015- 3 officers non- white were let go (two south asians and one oriental) and one ( punjabi) suspended . They were accused of not putting down their correct locations in the notebook while at work but notebooks of not any other officer in the entire department were even investigated or checked. If they would have checked more than half of the department would have been in trouble but John Avbar , the Acting Director ( actual position was Manager Property Standards ) at the time just hates non white community. Later, a South Asian ( Punjabi) Acting Supervisor sought disciplinary action against some Officers of his Platoon who were writing false information of their locations while on shift whereas they were having breakfast at Queen St/ Gateway Dr- No action was taken against the Officers but since majority officers were White – John Avbar , the Acting Director at the time removed that Supervisor ,the only visible minority Supervisor in a Full time acting role for reporting the incorrect entries . There were other incidents too.

Another was against another Officer of visible minority. Someone filed a complaint against bodily odour coming from an officer (who had been out all day working hard in 30 degrees- sweating out )and had to go to the court to drop off something. Complainant was probably white employee at the court house . John Avbar called the officer of South Asian origin to his office and without even enquiring about the circumstances- just started instructing the Officer on how he should be careful to prevent this body odour and commented on how Indian cooking generates so much smell and how Indians over use the spices .Officer Dang was very upset and reported this as a racial discrimination to the Union / HR . But even after reporting , no disciplinary action was ever taken against John Avbar. Rumors say that Paul Morrison was a part of the the meeting with the Union but Mohit Dang accused Paul Morrison of being racist as well- The incident in question was that Paul Morrison had refused to shake hands one day in the office with Officer Dang stating that he ( Paul) had a very worse cold and moments later , Paul not only shook hands with another officer who was white but also hugged him ( A year later , this white Officer was selected as a Supervisor in Property Standards unit )- probably only racialized workers can get affected by Cold. They have been going after other racialized workers in the department for different reasons- those created by them intentionally . Richard Mohammed ( John & his white supremacist squad is going after him to fire him but the Union is supporting him) , Mohinder Parhar , Jinder Rooprai , Rose Usman, Jaipaul Khaira- all have been harassed in some way . With strong support from Paul Morrison and John Avbar , Shane Keyes formed a 4 person White Squad named as The Vikings . They are Adam Armonas, Allyson Sander & Rory Payton ( who has now moved to a different municipality). They all are white , they all make fun of the South Asian Residents / Home owners & some officers as well, when in the office. They have nicknames for different communities. Allyson hates South Asians as her Ex was one .

Another story is that Shane Keyes did not have any Enforcement experience and was hired only as he had construction experience laying wooden floors and installing Kitchen cabinets . He did that in partnership with his friend on the side but was working in Brampton Transit cleaning the bus shelters . But after being hired in the Property Standards unit as an officer , he did some renovation work at Paul Morrison’s residence and then later applied for the Supervisor’s position. Paul wanted him to get the job and therefore Paul started telling everybody that this supervisor position was for the Parking side as the Supervisor’s job is transferable and that he would bring a Parking Supervisor to Property Stds and all the strong contenders , specially Non Whites did not apply as Property Standards unit has steady Mon- Fri shifts and Parking has shift work and nobody wanted a shift work . Shane Keyes was hired as a Supervisor in Property Stds . Then an email was sent to all staff that Shane Keyes was hired for the position as he had enough experience in supervising multiple employees in his Construction company- which is false he never had a company . He just had a business number for HST. That support from Paul and John just propelled energy in Shane, who ,friends with the other 3 officer of the Vikings- he started delegating his Supervisory duties to them as they were his friends who go on weekends excursions together with him like Fishing/ hiking etc ( even though fraternization between Management and workers is not allowed as a policy) and he just got the position due to favoritism/ or for renovating Paul’s kitchen free of cost . They used to make fun of Non white people in the office but nobody reported and kept going on as the workload was so much due to shortage of officers and no one wanted to complicate their lives. It is really bad in the Parking Enforcement unit . One of the officer lost his life due to cardiac arrest recently. There is a history behind it . That officer was subjected to some serious bullying/ hazing due to his different sexual orientation. Instead of firing those responsible / involved – they provided some relief to this officer in terms of modified shifts. But JP & Paul wanted to kick this officer out and they started going after him. He was put under a lot of stress by JP Maurice and Paul Morrison that this poor guy had a massive heart attack and lost his life due to this stress.

Can you imagine that there have been so many new projects or softwares / programs which have been tested in this period from since Paul Morrison took over as the Director , Enforcement & By law Services but not a single one was ever assigned to a racialized worker. The question arises WHY ?

They are just promoting their white friends. Rory, Adam, Allyson and Mark Viana have consistently been given the role of Acting Supervisor but nothing for the Black, Oriental & South Asian origin officers – Rory already gained from this and quit this City to go work at another Municipality in a Supervisory capacity. Even though there is a shortage of officers in Property standards as almost 5 officers are on short term or Long Term disability , Shane has been able to get Allyson Sander a non Union job of writing the SOPs ( which is the Supervisors job responsibility ) for Enf & By law Services. It is an Irony that our management is heavily staffed ( Licensing has 7 officers , One Supervisor and one manager – both management positions are in the Sunshine list, Parking Enforcement has 4 platoon Supervisors , One Admin Supervisor and One manager . Property Stds unit has 3 Supervisors and a manager ) The Admin Supervisor is supposed to take care of all the admin stuff including SOPs and answering to residents queries.
Also, the question is that Brampton ‘s 60% population is South Asian and we do not have a single South Asian in a Management Role-. 9 Supervisors and 3 Managers all making over $100k – Do we really need that many in management ?
The Platoon Supervisors are sitting in the office for most of their shift ( 11 hr) doing nothing. They should be out on the streets . They are well equipped to know the officer locations and their workloads . If the officers are not busy – The supervisors should be identifying and assigning pro active safety issues to the officers . Why do the residents have to call it in every time ? Oh may be because out of the 9 Supervisors and 3 managers – Only one Supervisor lives in Brampton- Those from outside dont care at all about Brampton.

Let me take you back now …..

Paul Morrison joined as the Director of Enf & By law Services after seeking retirement as a Deputy Police Chief from Hamilton Police Services. and that is when Friends started coming in . He hired JP Maurice as the manager , Enforcement ( Parking ) who then retired from Peel Regional Police as a Detective sergeant and took this job. Paul then got a position created in our department named as Advisor to the Director. And guess what , he hired Caroline Taylor who the best friend of JP Maurice’s wife and retired from PRP. A little later an investigation by PRP Internal affairs was being done against one of their own detective in the same unit where JP Maurice was posted earlier . Guess what ?? that Detective retired from PRP and joined Enf & By law Services as a Supervisor named Kevin Lindegaard.- hired by JP & Morrison. Later , a brother of a PRP constable who worked with JP Maurice & Kevin was hired a By law Officer ( Karanpreet Singh) . Then it was just a storm . Morrison/ JP hired Councillor Fortini’s daughter waiving off the written test . Then they also hired Brent Strachan as an Enforcement officer . Brent Strachan is a former employee / volunteer / family friend of Our Mayor Patrick Brown- of course to keep Brown happy. Then they hired Nick Gahunia as a coordinator in Enf & By law Services – although he works for the Mayor’s office but draws salary from Enforcement budget ( Could have hired at least two full time officers or 4 part time officers in that salary )

They even hired a student who used to bring in free chicken wings for the Supervisors and JP – his dad owns the Paradise Chicken by Queen / Kennedy . Then they hired about six or seven different officers in Enforcement (Parking) – all have PRP connections (kids of PRP cops) and another one’s dad (south asian) but is the Mayor’s friend.

For all these years , the number of complaints submitted to the council have been fudged by John Avbar & Paul to try to hire more officers. This was John s idea that a pro active Property Stds complaint was created for every zoning complaint means that if there is any complaint pertaining to a basement apartment, Lodging House, Driveway widening , storage shed etc – a Property stds complaint was created even though in 95% cases it would not be required and these PS complaints were closed as NC4C ( No cause for complaint) but was a statistical increase as they wanted to hire more officers and so that they can do more favors to their friends .

They even misused the funding received by the City from the Province for creating a Cannabis Task force but they used the money to start Lodging House Task Force instead. They spent and bought a very expensive new vehicle called street sweeper . It is actually equipped with a camera on the roof and records license plate numbers of vehicles parked on the street – was meant to help enforce 3 hour parking . It has been more than 3 years now – the vehicle has never been used for the intended purpose. Two unmarked vehicles allotted to Enforcement for under cover surveillance have always been misused by the management . Paul was using that vehicle for personal use.
RUMOUR has it that currently a new vehicle was allotted to Paul since he took over the position of Acting CAO – it was picked up by his wife . WHY ??
During COVID , Paul threatened officers if they did not go back to doing interior inspections when they had safety concerns.

Now let us talk about corruption- Mechanic shops/ Body shops on Kennedy Rd and on Stratford dr have been operating without licenses . Sources say that those businesses are paying cash to the Licensing Supervisor ( Kevin Lindegaard) . I am not from that unit so I tried reporting to the manager but I was asked to stay out of it .

Allyson Sander and Shane Keyes have been using their City time to do some educational courses . An anonymous complaint was filed against them for the City to investigate time fraud but nothing happened and instead they have been rewarded with promotions to new positions and higher pay because they are the Vikings and dear to Paul .

A complaint was also filed against Kevin Lindegaard for Time theft as he would leave half an hour early every day but he is ex PRP – nothing happened .

Political interference- It is happening so much in this council’s tenure as never before. Property Stds officers have successfully prosecuted Lodging Houses since 2017. All of a sudden , the management has informed us that the Prosecutors are unable to prosecute any more case as there is a glitch in the by law. Now this is not good for the hundreds of complainants and other affected residents who live next to a Rooming House/ Lodging House with 10-15 students/ individuals and neither to those home owner who have been fined by the court in the past- as if there is a glitch , the City should refund all the fines back to the owners of those properties. But further investigation led to the fact that it is because the Mayor does not want it . hence, we have been asked to back off prosecuting Lodging Houses.Initially , they forced all officers to investigate Lodging Houses even though some of the officers were not comfortable doing the same .

Officer Dang was investigating a file for a Pool permit at Mayor Brown’s house . There were some safety issues which were not being fixed by the Mayor . Officer Dang verbally cautioned the Mayor’s wife to fix otherwise there could be a fine . Guess what ? Dang goes back to the office – file is taken back from him and assigned to Supervisor Shane Keyes who closes the file as complied without any reinspection right at the same time – We know the details as Dang made entries in his notebook and told us to be on the safe side because if any kid falls in the pool , it could be bad and Dang would be held responsible and he wanted to create witness as the home is a high profile politician. Shane Keyes closed the file even before Dang could enter his notes in Amanda ( which is our complaint software). There are about 150 files on different officers desks which have been placed as pending due to political pressure from the Mayor or Councillors and no action is being taken – on hold till the election !

The Vikings have made another milestone – John Avbar is retiring in a few days and Shane Keyes has been named to replace him for the Acting Manager’s role and another white officer named Andrew Bettencourt has been named as the Acting Supervisor to replace Shane. Shane does not even have a two year experience as a Supervisor and he surpasses the other supervisors who have been working in those roles for 10-15 years – WOW !
Please have someone with ample experience to lead this unit .

By the way ,our Union guys dont do anything – officers from all three units have tried talking to our VP Steve Brown and Chief Steward Chris Sensicle but they said these do not make out enough for the Union to pursue- Our HR department is biased – always sides with the management .The Union ( CUPE831) is so weak . I dont know what deal they had with Paul Morrison, Acting CAO that our Job Evaluation report is delayed. All jobs , other than Transit & Fire are being evaluated and if any of the job is evaluated in way that it scores more points- its pay rate will be increased . As per the agreement with the Union, City will pay the retro increase from Jan 2019- means that pay rates of a lot jobs will go up since most of the jobs did not get evaluated in 15-20 years. So, the rumour has it that Morrison told Fabio Gazzola (Union President ) that the City’s finances are in real bad shape and a deal was struck to delay this whole process of job evaluation till the end of the current contract which expires March 2024.

The morale in our entire department is so low . Shortage of officers , too much workload , stressed environment due to Intense Racism , favoritism, Nepotism and corruption. It needs to be investigated by some independent agency otherwise the officers quoted or reported in this complaint would back off due to their safety . They will find me though and punish me but I am not scared( They have used their connections in PRP & Hamilton Police IT department to find the IP address and confronted the officers) but if things go bad I will come out and seek help . There are so many other things as well to report but I will report those in person once the investigation begins .
A humble request to everyone , please demand and force a thorough investigation into this and remove the White Supremacists including the Vikings from those management roles .Please SAVE BRAMPTON ! PLEASE SAVE US !

Thanks

Worker369
Whistleblower Brampton