Leading up to the Wednesday, May 1, 2024 Saskatchewan Party Nomination for the White City-Qu'Appelle Constituency, I provided my personal endorsement for one of the candidates in an email to a limited number of my personal contacts. That endorsement included the following statement: “Please note this is strictly my personal endorsement of [redacted] as a candidate for the nomination – not an endorsement in any other capacity.”
3 days after that meeting, I received an email from someone I’d never met and, to the best of my knowledge, still haven’t met. I could be wrong, but I don’t believe she lives in our community or is one of our ratepayers. Regardless, her email contained misinformation, assumptions and improper accusations that spawned a chain of events, up to my forwarding my concerns to our MLA, Christine Tell. I’m making this public now as I believe there are those who may attempt to use this misinformation, assumptions and improper accusations against me during this campaign.
The original email:
From: [redacted]
Sent: Saturday, May 4, 2024 7:43 PM
Subject: Re: Brian Fergusson Endorses [redacted] Saskatchewan Party Nomination - White City-Qu'Appelle Constituency
Dear Mr Fergusson:
I have many questions following the conclusion of this nomination and your intentions.
The third place candidate that doesn’t live in the riding was very publicly endorsed by you. Therefore I am seeking answers to the following to be accountable for your position:
The endorsed candidate spoke with certainty of plans for “cooperative housing” with municipalities, and you were clear that you discussed and supported the candidate’s “philosophies” - which would include this as one of his two flagship commitments. Is council considering this? Why are in-camera discussions happening with a developer that would align with this? When are the ratepayers going to find out about discussions around cooperative housing in White City? What is council’s formal position on cooperative housing, and explain why it does or does not align with your personal position.
You said in your personal endorsement that “In the spirit of transparency, consistent with my long-standing position of neutrality I will not be attending the nomination meeting.” However, you did attend the nomination meeting to endorse the third place candidate who lives in Regina and you certainly appeared to have gone behind the ballot box to vote. I was there. Why state this when you clearly had no intent of doing so? What does “long standing position of neutrality” mean after publicly standing with the provincial NDP at a political news conference and then lying about your intentions of fully participating in this process with the Sask Party? By your own admission, you lied.
You do not have my permission to use or forward my name in any format for any public or private discussion.
I certainly look forward to your explanations. There are many concerned ratepayers in advance of this fall’s municipal election.
My response to the email:
From: Brian Fergusson
Date: May 5, 2024 at 8:41 AM CST
To: [redacted]
“There are many concerned ratepayers in advance of this fall’s municipal election.”
Good – I’m encouraged there are people interested in the future of our community, and I hope we have a strong slate of candidates for Council.
If you feel these questions are relevant to my candidacy and if my name is on the ballot, you’re certainly welcome to raise them during the fall municipal election campaign. Until then, I’ll provide no further response.
Thanks.
After sending my response on May 5, I discovered the author of the email worked in the Premier’s office, and was concerned about the spreading of false and malicious information within that office. As a result, I sent the below email to MLA Christine Tell.
From: Brian Fergusson
Date: May 6, 2024 at 12:21:09 PM CST
Subject: False facts, assumptions and improper accusations
Christine:
Normally, I’d ignore comments such as those in the below email written by [redacted], but given her position as [staff person in Premier’s office – title redacted], I’m concerned those in her circle of contacts may have made similar fallacious assumptions and hold some of the same misconceptions. I’m not going to speculate on her motivations for writing what she did, but I am going to deal with what she wrote.
The endorsed candidate spoke with certainty of plans for “cooperative housing” with municipalities, and you were clear that you discussed and supported the candidate’s “philosophies” - which would include this as one of his two flagship commitments. Is council considering this? Why are in-camera discussions happening with a developer that would align with this? When are the ratepayers going to find out about discussions around cooperative housing in White City? What is council’s formal position on cooperative housing, and explain why it does or does not align with your personal position.
Response / comments:
[redacted] seems to take my statement that “I’ve spent some time with [redacted], discussing his background and personal philosophies” to believe that [redacted] and I spoke about – and agreed – on everything he said in his May 1 speech at the nominating meeting. As I’m sure you appreciate, I’m not [redacted]’s Campaign Manager, and [redacted] and I aren’t close enough that he vetted his speech with me before he went to the podium. Frankly, if he had, I could have written him a much better speech – but that’s another matter.
As anyone who understands the Municipalities Act and municipality / developer relations would know, in camera discussions are a normal part of how Councils and developers work together. Clearly, ratepayers would be made aware of such discussions through their appearance as agenda items, either for Committee of the Whole or Council meetings. A review of those agendas would show whether such discussions may be taking place, albeit without details. Further, per the Municipalities Act, all decisions related thereto must be made by Council in public or open meetings, not in camera. If [redacted] is that interested, she can go to White City’s website (www.whitecity.ca) and peruse those Agendas, related Minutes, Summaries, and video recordings of meetings – it’s all publicly accessible.
If White City Council had a policy on cooperative housing it would be public and published. There’s no policy on cooperative housing – for or against.
The tone and content of the paragraph seems to be based upon the idea that cooperative housing, by its very nature, is bad. As noted immediately above, White City Council hasn’t taken a position on this, but I think it’s fair to say Council and Town Administration is prepared to consider different forms of development and hasn’t ‘closed the book’ on any type or form. After all, none of us are as smart as all of us, and Council needs to be open to both traditional and new development ideas.
You said in your personal endorsement that “In the spirit of transparency, consistent with my long-standing position of neutrality I will not be attending the nomination meeting.” However, you did attend the nomination meeting to endorse the third place candidate who lives in Regina and you certainly appeared to have gone behind the ballot box to vote. I was there. Why state this when you clearly had no intent of doing so? What does “long standing position of neutrality” mean after publicly standing with the provincial NDP at a political news conference and then lying about your intentions of fully participating in this process with the Sask Party? By your own admission, you lied.
Response / Comments:
I had no intention of attending the nomination meeting at the time I wrote my email, that [redacted] subsequently picked up and re-distributed. Nearly three weeks passed between when I wrote that email and the nomination meeting. During those 19 days, I was involved in several conversations and received information that convinced me it would be appropriate to change my mind and attend the meeting. I’m no different than others, I assess new information against previously known information and, if necessary, change direction. That decision was made only a few days before attending the meeting.
Why then, did I not notify recipients of my email that I had changed my mind? While I certainly thought about sending another email to follow-up or correct the original, my prevailing thought was that those I sent my email to are all in my ‘close circle’, they’re all busy people, and the last thing they needed was an email telling them I was going to attend the meeting. It wasn’t a social gathering, and my attendance shouldn’t affect their decision – so why bother them with it? Regardless, there was a low probability of reaching those to whom my earlier email had been sent, either by me or [redacted].
As to neutrality and “publicly standing with the provincial NDP at a political news conference”, it’s obvious [redacted] is incapable of separating decisions and actions I take as an independent individual and those in my role as Mayor of White City. As the spokesperson for the Town of White City, I’m ‘front and centre’ with Town messaging. This applies whether I agree or disagree with Council’s decisions – Council makes decisions and I’m the ‘point person’ to deal with media events, ribbon-cutting and, yes, even standing with the Opposition when it comes to issues that matter to our community and its residents. Regardless, if the ‘tables were turned’ and the NDP formed government, I’d be there beside the Opposition / SaskParty MLAs were it necessary to advance the interests of White City and its residents.
“…lying about your intentions of fully participating in this process with the Sask Party? By your own admission, you lied.” I’ve covered my intent above. These are strong words and unsupported by facts. Regardless, contrary to [redacted]’s assertion, I’ve not admitted I lied – that’s an assumption she has made based upon her lack of awareness of changing knowledge and circumstances – and my intentions. I’d suggest making assumptions and proceeding without validation is generally unwise. In this situation, had [redacted] made these accusations in a public forum I’d likely be contacting legal counsel, not my MLA.
Hopefully, [redacted] putting her comments and questions in writing and sending them to me was a momentary lapse in judgment. They certainly come across as ill-conceived and perhaps a reflection of her youth and lack of maturity that more seasoned veterans are less likely to suffer from.
As noted at the top, my primary concern is the ‘false facts’, assumptions and improper accusations espoused by [redacted] are shared with and by others – and I’d like to have them stopped before ‘coffee talk’ and office conversations somehow turn them into widely held beliefs.
Please let me know if you’d like to explore this further.
Sincerely,
Brian Fergusson
Shortly after sending my email to MLA Tell, I was advised the author of the original email had a personal relationship with one of the unsuccessful candidates for the nomination. This is a likely explanation for the motivation to send me the email.
Finally, on May 27 I received an email that my email to MLA Tell was forwarded to Executive Council. I’ve not heard or seen anything since and have no idea what action, if any, was taken by Executive Council.
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