Former Regional Councillor and embattled NPCA CAO named top bureaucrat in Toronto suburb, legacy in Pelham lives on
David Barrick, the former acting Chief Administrative Officer of the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority (NPCA), at the height of its turmoil in 2018 and earlier this year, has been hired as CAO by the City of Brampton.
“I am pleased to welcome David Barrick as Brampton’s new Chief Administrative Officer,” Brampton Mayor and former Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown said in a news release. “Our new Council has moved quickly to address community priorities like keeping taxes low and improving community safety as we achieve our Term of Council Priorities.”
Contacted for comment, Barrick told the Voice that he appreciated Brampton council’s confidence in him.
“As one of Canada’s fastest-growing cities, Brampton is undergoing significant growth and change, and council has outlined a clear plan for supporting and strengthening the community,” said Barrick. “As CAO, I am committed to working with City staff to provide public services that are accountable to Brampton residents while continuously pursuing efficiencies and service excellence."
Barrick’s tenure on Niagara Regional Council often saw him at loggerheads with former Pelham mayor David Augustyn, whose handling of Town finances, in Barrick’s view, posed a wider risk to the Region. Allied with then-Regional Councillor from Grimsby Tony Quirk, Barrick was largely responsible for bringing Pelham’s precarious financial situation to wider notice, with the issue figuring prominently at several Regional Council meetings in 2017 and 2018.
The Voice's coverage of the issue at the time so irked Pelham Town Hall that officials stonewalled the newspaper and removed the media desk from council chambers. Following condemnation by Canadian and American journalism associations, the policy was quietly abandoned.
Tony Quirk, now back in private business in Grimsby, told the Voice that he enjoyed working with Barrick.
“I always found him professional in his dealings with boards and councils,” said Quirk, “and I know he will make an excellent addition to Brampton's team. Brampton's gain is Niagara's loss. His talents and expertise will help Brampton maintain their pro-growth, low-tax agenda."
Ex-Regional colleagues Sandy Annunziata, former councillor from Ft. Erie, and Bob Gale, current councillor from Niagara Falls, were similarly effusive.
“David has a wonderful family that I’m so happy for,” said Annunziata. “He is a dedicated professional that has always displayed great fiscal acuity and focused problem solving.”
“Dave showed last term that he watched costs and scrutinized staffs projects while Niagara Region’s chair of Corporate Services,” said Gale, “and he was a valuable ally on the Police Board while I was chairman.”
Last autumn, Barrick opted not to run for reelection to Regional Council representing Port Colborne, deciding instead to concentrate on his job at the NPCA. In series of events still not clearly explained, in late 2018 he was fired, then rehired, then was himself named acting CAO of the conservation authority.
Barrick was first hired by the NPCA as Corporate Services Director, in 2013. This move was later flagged by Ontario’s Auditor General as an example of unfair hiring practices within the agency. The AG’s final report detailed multiple irregularities inside the structure of the NPCA, and directly resulted in the replacement of 16 of its 18 board members.
Barrick left the NPCA in February. His salary as acting CAO was never publicly disclosed, nor were the terms of his separation agreement.
In a related development, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario ruled October 3 that the NPCA must disclose the salaries of members making $100,000 a year or more, despite the NPCA not being subject to the provincial government’s Sunshine List. This in response to a Freedom of Information request filed by the activist (now NPCA board member) Ed Smith. (Neither Smith nor former Pelham mayor David Augustyn acknowledged Voice requests for comment on Barrick’s move to Brampton.)
Barrick’s indirect legacy in Pelham lives on, with an entirely new Town Council and mayor replacing those in government when Barrick and Quirk took their magnifying glasses to the municipality’s books. David Augustyn failed in his run for Regional Councillor last October, coming third in a four-way race. And Darren Ottaway, the CAO in charge of implementing the previous council’s land-for-credits scheme—exposed by whistleblower real estate developer Rainer Hummel—was fired by the incoming council last January.
Augustyn is now a fundraiser for Niagara Family and Children Services Foundation. Ottaway was recently named CAO of Cochrane, a town in northern Ontario.
