From previous comments on this site, it appears as though the OPFFA colluded with Halton Police to bring about charges against Colin Grieve and Paul Atkinson. The Detective on the case testified that he was not a Forensic Accountant and did not employ a Forensic Accountant to look into the transactions between the OPFFA and the PFAI. The Detective, therefore, jumped to erroneous conclusions regarding those transactions.
However, when a Forensic Accountant is employed you can reach substantiated and true conclusions. Case in point, when Insignia Forensic Accounting was retained as independent forensic accountants to validate the payments made
by the Oakville Professional Fire Fighters Association (“OPFFA”) to its officers and certain subcommittee members, in respect of honorariums, duty exchange, non-travel related per diems and mileage, in the years 2007 to 2013, inclusive.
In regards to honorariums, Insignia validated that amounts totaling $304,127.04 were paid in respect of officer honorariums for the years 2007 to 2013. They then calculated the honorariums payable for these years, based on the annual Constitutions of the OPFFA, to be $232,430.85. On this basis, the excess honorariums are calculated to be $71,696.19.
According to Insignia:
“We agreed the details of the honorarium payments made to the officers, as per the Custom Transaction Detail Reports provided to us, to the cancelled cheques or cheque images returned with the bank statements for the OPFFA bank account. As it relates to Christopher Day, for whom we were not provided with a Custom Transaction Detail Report, we confirmed the amounts paid to him based on the cleared cheques/cheque images. Based on our examination of all of the cleared cheques/cheque images provided to us, we did not identify any further honorarium payments. As per Schedule 1 attached, the payments total $304,127 .04, which we have summarized by year and by an individual. The annual Constitutions of the OPFFA state that officers are entitled to receive an annual
Officers’ Expense Allowance for each position held. The allowances are calculated as a percentage of a first-class fire fighter’s annual salary and vary depending on the position. Using the percentages contained in the annual Constitutions and the salary rates of a first-class firefighter, as per copies of the agreements between the OPFFA and The Corporation of the Town of Oakville in effect in each year, we calculated the total honorariums payable for 2007 to 2013 to be $232,430.85. ln assessing the honorarium payable to each individual for each year, we relied upon the description of the positions held by the individuals, as per the spreadsheet provided to us by the OPFFA in this regard. Regarding Jim Peterson, for 2007 we noted that the spreadsheet indicates that he was Secretary and a Negotiating Committee Member; however, we confirmed, based on our examination of all cleared cheques, that he was only paid for the Secretary position–,You have advised us that there is no documentation available which confirms the position(s) held by Jim Peterson in 2007 and that the entry on
the spreadsheet indicating that he was a Negotiating Committee Member may have been made in error. Accordingly, for the purposes of our report, we have assumed that Jim Peterson only held the position of Secretary in 2007.
Based on the foregoing, the honorarium payments made for the years 2007 to 2013 exceed the honorariums payable for these years, by $71,696.19.”
Who was overpaid?
Carmen Santoro (President/Negotiating Chair) from 2007 to 2013 was paid $103,041.80. According to the Insignia Forensic Accountants as per the Oakville Professional Fire Fighters Association Constitution his honorarium should have been $78,872.09. Santoro took home an extra $24,169.71 of dues-paying members funds.
Andrew Lee (Treasurer/Vice President/Benefits) from 2007 to 2013 was paid $69,075.72, his honorarium should have been $52,434. Lee took home an extra $16,611.34 of dues-paying members funds.
Paul Evans – (Treasurer/Negotiating) from 2007 to 2013 was paid $55,713.48, his honorarium should have been $41,930.57. Evans took home an extra $13,782.91 of dues-paying members funds.
Jim Peterson (Secretary) from 2007 to 2013 was paid $40,702.11, his honorarium should have been $31,260.33. Peterson took home an extra $9,141.78 of dues-paying members funds.
This begs to question… is this a crime punishable by law? Should Halton Police investigate this misappropriation of Association funds? If I was an Oakville member I would argue that the investigation and subsequent arrest of Colin Grieve and Paul Atkinson by Detective Constable Taylor Meyers was instigated by a package of pre-prepared and false witness statements given to him by the OPFFA which allowed him to perform an amateur and erroneous audit of PFAI’s books. Well in this case you have an Audit performed by professional and accredited Forensic Accountants. If I was an Oakville member I would take a copy of this audit to Constable Meyers and scream for justice, just as Santoro screamed to incriminate two innocent men! Oakville Fire get your head out of your asses for ‘God’s sake!
Those who live in glass houses…
I am disgusted by the constant attacks on Ryan. You cowards, talk about bullying? You bully Ryan because you blindly bow to Santoro. The truth will be revealed and you will feel like the bad and ugly bullies you are.
Did anyone ask Ryan if he wrote the letter?
Well said Mr.Fullerton!
I have met Ryan Szacas on several occasions while attending the Criminal Pretrial. Ryan, in my opinion, is a very intelligent and caring person. I applaud Ryan for questioning the Oakville Executive and the OPFFA. To me, it’s quite obvious these two organizations are corrupt. The truth always has a way of revealing itself, it’s all just a matter of time. When this happens, Ryan will be vindicated and seen as a hero. And Santoro, Hyndman, and their pawns will get their just deserts. Unfortunately, those just deserts will be at the expense of the OPFFA members (most of them otherwise known as sheep, sheep who believe everything that is fed to them without doing any due diligence of their own). When I say ‘at their expense’, surely these members are aware of who will be covering the cost of the Counter Suit? If not, they need to start getting involved and do some research on how their OPFFA Executive has set them up.
When I referred to Ryan as being a hero, I do not use that term lightly. It takes tremendous courage and conviction to stand up against a large bullying organization, and then face malicious accusations and slander every day at his place of work. And all the while, all he is trying to accomplish is to shed light on the truth regarding Atkinson & Grieve, to let both sides of the story be told, and help all Ontario Fire Fighters recognize they are being misled.
I really hope when this hearing and lawsuit reaches it’s conclusion that Ryan will have some remaining energy and desire left within himself and become a leader within the Oakville Fire Department, and right the wrongs that have been plaguing it for many years.
It has been said, and is quite fitting in this circumstance, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”. Ryan is a good man.
John McCarthy
Retired Hamilton Fire Fighter, proudly unassociated with the current OPFFA.
Thank you John McCarthy and “Fed up” for your kind words.
Agreed that one should not rely on social media and news media and personally attacking
I’ve since retired from fire department I met Fred Leblanc, Carmine Santoro several times. There were several hundred fire fighters in attendance when Carmine Santoro and his girlfriend attended fire convenctions when he was in good spirits and did not seem to have any physical ailments. I’m not certain if he was on Workers Insurance at the time and don’t think it’s prudent to accuse him of that without any evidence.
My memory is not what it used too be but I think this was the conference where the union executive board addressed the other attendees that they had went to the media with a lawsuit announcement claiming that through the hard and long work of the union they discovered that Colin Grieves and Paul Atkinson had swindled millions of dollars from the Occuaptional disease committee fund. Not sure exactly who was in attendance however you can confirm info with members who were present.
Once the Firefighter union association received the Statement of defense from Colin Grieves and Paul Atkinson the executive members
Chris Francescone,
Mike Pause,
Carmine Santoro,
Warren Scott and
Chris Varcoe all stepped down from there executive board positions reasons including terminal back cancer, fortunate enough to still able to play golf tournaments at work functions, calling in sick, unable to return to work to perform light modified duties because of PTSD, still able to attend meetings with employeer, off on Workers comp unable to return to work though still able to travel the Province seeking employment with other avenues. The lawsuit that the union initiated against Colin Greives and Paul Atkinson was so traumatic for the union board, the union brought harassment charges to any fire member who talked about the lawsuit. Don’t have details of the Letter that caused union to get bad contract-did they find out who the member was?
No one should be bringing up personal details, Workers comp, PTSD, reasons people are unable to work but unfortunuatley we can’t control if others share and advertise their own personal details with others, examples of such include going to news media to discuss lawsuits, calling in sick while golfing with coworkers, and having paid meetings with the employeer while stating you are unable to return to work to that employeer.
As I have mentioned my memory isn’t what it used to be so to confirm these details it’s recommended to obtain this info by contacting your local executive or district rep.
We apologize for the length of our comment but we feel it is important for the broader membership to know,
On behalf of so many members of the Oakville local:
To all our extended brothers and sisters in the fire service, active and retired, their families and those ‘off the job’ who have been directly and indirectly affected by the destructive and vindictive behaviour of Carmen Santoro, his associates and his small group of blindly loyal followers, we’d like to offer our sincerest apologies and submit to you all, a (somewhat brief) explanation of how we have all found ourselves, here. If you have closely followed the details of the Grieve/Atkinson case, had the opportunity to read the court documents or attended any of the pre-trial dates, you are well aware of the baseless claims, outright lies and complete lack of evidence the OPFFA have provided to the courts during the pre-trial hearings. You are aware of how the very witnesses that the Crown has called on-on behalf of prosecution have, under oath, given sworn testimony refuting Santoro’s claims, exposing his propensity to continuously lie for self-gain. Sadly, the Grieve/Atkinson case is the culmination of years of union officials being enabled and permitted to get away with this sort of behaviour, abusing executive positions for years at the local level playing dirty politics against our own members with little to no accountability being put upon him. This is by no means an excuse or plea for sympathy for Oakville members (a plea for help, maybe!), we all make choices every day, but we’d like you to understand the dynamics that currently exist in our local of close to 230 members which may help in explaining a portion of what has transpired at the provincial level. Our local is completely fractured and many are disillusioned. In truth, there is only about 15% of our members that are full-fledged Santoro supporters. They are known as the ‘Kool-aid’ drinkers. They refer to Santoro as, ‘The horse’s mouth’, meaning, whatever he says is, gospel-period. He doesn’t need to substantiate any of his claims, he doesn’t need to show them actual proof of anything he says or does, he just needs to tell them it is so and it is immediately accepted as TRUTH. No free thought or critical thinking required. Some of them, for their loyalty are handed multiple extra union subs (out of turn) or Association days here and there or they are in the ‘condo club’ invited down south or the poker and golf clubs, etc., etc. and they remain loyal because of it. It doesn’t matter to them how unethical or hypocritical his actions are against our own – dues paying members – ironically this includes them as well, his most loyal because in their eyes, he can do wrong. When they have nothing else they can say to justify his actions, they default to things like,
“Yeah, but he got us a good contract.”
We will touch on that later…
As you see from the other comments above in this thread, with the ‘Santoro coloured glasses’ they wear, he is the greatest, (because he tells them so.) The reality is, he does possess some greatness; he is great at manipulation and misdirection, great at surrounding himself with ‘yes people’, great at controlling information flow which allows him to dictate and easily change the narrative, great at misrepresenting the facts, great at propaganda, gas-lighting and projecting while he creates false truths that his supporters then spread around the association until it becomes the only narrative heard. It becomes a great way to influence the perception of new recruits for much needed swing votes and shape a new HIS-story.
“Tell a lie enough and it becomes the truth.”
Clearly incapable of accepting fault, if something doesn’t go his way or he reneges on (empty) campaign promises, he simply blames others. The irony is if you look at all the baseless accusations he has made against others over the course of his career, it is his behaviour, his actions he is actually citing. He is also quick to take credit for others work when something is a success.
For the better part of 11 of the last 15 years, information into the day to day activities and finances of the local have been limited and flowed solely through Santoro. Anyone who does not have their questions pre-approved or quite literally scripted by Santoro as one of his ‘planted audience members’ during meetings will be swiftly shut out, shouted down, berated, jumped all over by grunts, groans name calling or animal sounding jeers and heckling effectively drowning the person out. This childish behaviour coming from him or his loyal 15%. It makes meetings so unbearable that membership attendance and participation drops to record lows during his time on the Executive Board. People simply disengage and tune out.
Anyone who he perceives to be challenging him or a threat to his position or current narrative becomes square in his cross hairs and he does not stop until you give up and walk away or he has put so much misinformation out there, people have forgot what the issue is actually about or have stopped listening altogether. Unfortunately, at that point, the truth no longer matters. As for the rest of our membership, approx. 25% are 4 1/2 years and under and unaware of the full history, the factual history of his actions and how it will impact them in the future. There remains a dwindling 10% that are outspoken against him but they have been largely marginalized. The 50% of members is where we need the most help. That 50% are made up of a cross section of those who have been beaten down in the past and have thrown their hands in the air, others who want to remain out of the cross hairs themselves (having seen how those who speak up are attacked), a percentage that turn a blind eye out of fear or indifference and a group that prefer to sit on the fence, ‘not wanting to get involved. They just want to come to work and have fun and run calls.’
They don’t see how evil flourishes when good men and women do nothing.
They don’t see how the very job environment they want is exactly what those being abused by Santoro want for themselves as well.
With few tuned in to what is going and even fewer attending meetings, there are no real questions. Exactly how Santoro wants it.
Questions lead to Knowledge, Knowledge leads to Power.
Santoro prefers to keep that centralized to himself. Our local is grossly under educated on how an actual union meeting is supposed to run. How ratification meetings should take place and how the grievance and arbitration process actually work. With very few watching, our constitution is constantly cherry picked on what aspects of it get followed and when.
We acknowledge we have made many statements here that some will try and dismiss as opinionated, but unlike Santoro, we will provide a few factual examples of his actions that will speak to his real character and validate what we’ve written herein as they are verifiable.
As McCarthy explained in an earlier post on this site, “this is just the tip of the iceberg” with the following examples:
-Earlier we mentioned about our contracts and how Santoro is quick to take credit for others efforts. Ask many of our members and their understanding is that Carmen Santoro is the rainmaker, the bringer of contracts. They have little to no education on how the interest arbitration works, how locals build off each other and leapfrog one another over the years. Very few would know that we paid just over $10000 in 2006-2008 to Henry Watson, the former President of L288 Hamilton, to advocate that contract on our behalf as Santoro and his Board had just come into office having very little experience. That 2005-2008 contract saw the most significant gains for our local, catching up and surpassing many locals in the province and shortly thereafter our local’s contract would, for a time be referred to as the ‘gold standard of contracts.’ If you read Santoro’s campaign material, listen to him toot his own horn or ask most members, they will tell you Santoro freely negotiated 3 back to back contracts 2005-08, 2009-11 and 2012-2015 and that it is because of him, we are as successful as we are today. Almost none, would be able to tell you Watson was our advocate or know any of the work he did to bring the gains realized in the first contract to fruition.
-Watson was also President of Hamilton – at the time, the 4th largest local in the Provincial, withdrew from the OPFFA while Santoro was President.
-Before ratification meetings, the contract to be ratified has never been provided to the members beforehand so that they may be able to read, digest and have time to discuss and formulate any questions and areas they need clarified or have concerns about. At the meetings themselves, info is often misrepresented, (an example being our latest salary increases) and details skimmed over and then there is a short Q & A usually with some audience plants that overly praise the work Santoro and his committee have done and members are off to their ’11th hour’ vote. The same playbook applies, anyone that has a question taking issue with the contract or his work is quickly shot down. To be more specific, at our latest contract ratification approx. 100-120 of our nearly 230 members attended and voted over 2 days. Off the top of the meeting, members were briefly shown another alleged letter to council speaking poorly of Santoro. Santoro, by the actions of some of his followers was clear who he was implying wrote the letter and his aim was to incite anger among the members claiming that, “there was a better contract on the table but because of this individual and their letter, management pulled the extra benefits and raises off the table.” Laughable, but the idea was embraced that this individual “took money off your families table!” A brilliant distraction for the members right before he would glaze over the mediocre contract points where we have freely given up much more than we gained including the loss of vacation time, (something we just spent tens of thousands in a grievance fighting for.) Santoro then went on to blame Toronto members for taking a bad deal and because they took 1.5% we were handcuffed. He then showed our members that he managed to get us 1.9% and 1.5 respectively but left out the part that our years are splits not explaining to the membership that 1.9% and 1.5% on splits are actually 1.45% and 1.25% respectively. Less sexy numbers, but at least it would be a full disclosure and honest depiction. We are now almost a month after ratification and a week and a half before voting on the president position and no member has been able to see a written version or excerpts of the version of the agreed upon contract…is that on purpose, right before a vote?
-While too sick to work on the trucks over the last 2 years, Santoro was still able to maintain his 5 different streams of union related income including other local’s interest arb. boards. Not one to miss a photo op with a politician or attend a golf tournament but, he couldn’t be bothered to attend the funerals for our own local’s retired members, including the latest which was stated as a LODD. We only remember seeing him out at 1 of the last 8 Remembrance Day marches (no show this year) and the only time we remember seeing him out to an MD Boot Drive was for three hours on a day he was given the entire 24 hour shift off a few years back. He has also been a no show to the last few annual retirement functions, these are during times he was serving on an Executive and went so far as to repeatedly demand of our retirement committee to have the the $20 ticket paid back for a retirement party he couldn’t attend a couple of years ago.
-Perhaps the most outrageous, he now seems to be laying the groundwork for the potential of what is looking more and more inevitable of the Grieve/Atkinson case going off the rails for him. It has been mentioned by multiple ‘Kool-aid’ drinkers in his 15% that there is ‘A Machine’ like some ‘invisible hand’ working behind Grieve and Atkinson that is trying to sabotage the case and that is why it hasn’t been going as well! I’m not sure if he means a machine like say, “the IAFF or OPFFA and their membership built coffers?
Those actions, completely his own, we believe speak volumes about the real Santoro.
-You’ve read in the article above about the foresnic report the local had done. To this day, the only executive member we know of during the time period examined that has brought in the requested CRA form that would put an end to the dispute and questions surrounding the overpayments, referred to as a ‘Form C’ is Mr.Day. A Form which would conclusively show in each year that member’s dues money went in fact, to the intended source and not elsewhere. While Santoro vehemently denounces the finding of the forensic report, he has yet to provide the members with that section of the Form C for the years in question. Only Mr.Day has voluntarily proved no monies paid to him were misappropriated.
-Carmen Santoro has repeatedly used HR to lodge complaints against members that have refused to tow his line, claiming harassment against him, while sitting as President. There have been several instances of letters allegedly given to Councillors that allegedly speak ill of Santoro. Santoro proceeded to file a formal complaint accusing a member as the distributor of said letter. Ryan, who you see mentioned in comments in this thread was brought in and investigated numerous times While having no proof to date, Santoro went so far as to have his Acting Capt. submit a false report naming another member working with Ryan as party to this harassing behaviour. No evidence was ever provided and the Acting Capt’s statement was found to be completely false and the entire complaint dismissed when it was proven that the other member named was never even at work during the time in question. No formal apology has ever been provided by Santoro or his Acting Capt. to Ryan or our other member for the undue stress caused by having their reputations smeared and for being hauled down and investigated by the employer. The employer has taken no action against Santoro for filing a false and vexatious complaint. Santoro and his loyalists, as you can see, continue to target Ryan because Ryan has repeatedly asked that both sides of the Grieve/Atkinson case be provided for members for review along with a copy of the insurance policy Santoro claims is in place and paying for this entire legal process so that members will not be assessed and no money was to be used from the Occupational Disease Fund to pay for the lawsuit.
-Santoro has not openly shared any of the pre-trial dates with our Local nor has he shown up to any of the dates himself.
-Santoro was charged and convicted for destroying another executive members phone during a meeting.
-Santoro without notifying his other Board members at the time, initiated a grievance against discipline brought on him after being found to have harassed a member, it was later learned this cost the members close to $7000.
This is but a fraction of the underhanded stunts Santoro has pulled over the years to maintain his lies and cut off access to members for information they can verify themselves.
-Santoro complained to the employer that the BurningShenanigans site is poisoning his workplace and it has since had its access blocked by the employer.
One can only be left to ponder; If factual summations and the truth are poisoning your workplace, it may be time to take a long look in the mirror and ask yourself some hard questions.
Stop the CS BS.
Time to come clean with the members on all fronts, Santoro.
Stop the attacks, stop the insanity you’ve put members in good standing, this local and now the Provincial through.
Your behaviour, your actions and the anger you incite into others with lies is destroying the hard earned reputation of good fire fighters everywhere.
A reputation that was built on TRUST, HONOUR and INTEGRITY.
It’s very difficult to stand proud and call ourselves professionals when reading all of these posts. We should all be ashamed of the way we have been acting. Everyone has different views on issues. Everyone has an opinion. The one thing we are forgetting is that EVERYONE is entitled to those opinions. Although Mr Santoro has made mistakes in the past he does not deserve to be ridiculed on social media nor does anyone. His personal life should be left alone. His time on WSIB should not be of anyone’s concern. The decisions he made while he was president of the OPFFA are decisions he will be judged for when the court rules. I do not agree with Mr Santoros decisions nor do I like many of them but I will give him the respect by not bashing him on social media as I have not walked in his shoes nor know all the facts as I’m sure many people on this site don’t either. It is everyone’s right to voice their concerns but if your voice has any tone of disrespect then you are no better than the people you are accusing. “Kool aid drinkers” is a derogatory term used by many people for and against Carmen. Basically it means you are stupid and can’t think for yourself. In reality it’s a form of bullying and you are using the phrase because someone does not share the same views as you. Oakville fire has two sides which some identify them as the good side and the dark side. Whatever side you are on, you need to look at yourselves and the actions you have taken before calling someone else a bully. Attacking people, especially on social media, does not make you better than the people you are accusing. If you don’t like the way a person is conducting themselves, do the “PROFESSIONAL” thing and voice you opinions in a respectful manner. Strongly worded comments are fine but insulting and judgemental comments are not. Post facts not opinions. Post what you would like to see changed not blame others what you think is wrong. I also read a comment that blames Ryan for writing a letter. Where’s your proof on that. Did someone tell you that and you decided to spread it. Nobody knows for sure who wrote the letter. Most will agree it was of poor taste and should never have been written but to accuse someone when you are not 100 percent sure is childish. For the person that wrote the letter, you should stop and look in the mirror because your tactics are disgusting especially attacking someone on a personal level. That being said everyone in the fire service needs to start respecting others and put “brotherhood/sisterhood” back into this great profession. If we don’t we can only blame ourselves for the destruction of our united front.
By the way I’m an Oakville firefighter. My name is Pete Fullarton and I am sick of how things have become in the fire service. NOW TO MY DEAR BALLBUSTING FRIENDS that think this would be a great opportunity to write back to get me riled up, I’m not going to fall for it. Already got sucked into that one once before lol. Not going to get me again lol… I hope.
Ryan Szacas be a man and admit what you did! SHAME ON YOU!!!!
Anonymous be a man and say it to my face.
I think we should get in the ring for a worthy cause. https://badgebattle.info/
At least you spelled my name correctly.
To Pete and Long Letter Writing person,
Thanks for sticking up for me.
SHAME….. SHAME!!!!!!
Okay I give up. You guys go ahead and continue to use names. Go ahead and Bash one and other. Accuse someone all you want without any certain proof. I hope to god you’re not wrong in accusing Ryan although since you guys seem to hide behind anonymous posts, makes me wonder how certain you think your information is. Good luck with your quest to ruin a person. You should be so proud! Can’t believe this is what professional firefighters have stooped to by writing letters AND making personal attacks on social media. I’m off to the daycare now where they act more mature than this blog
Again I’ll sign my post!
Peter Fullarton
Oakville Firefighter
Im a fire fighter and have know Carmen Santoro as friend as well. Carmen and his board members work hard everyday. Recently Carmen was the target of harassment from a member of his own fire department. This jackass wrote a letter to town council harassing Santoro. It was so bad they were not able to get a good contract. A huge thank you to Carmen and your board members for the hard work you make everyone do. The Ontario fire fighters would not have the successes it does without this great man.
Santoro sounds like a scumbag bully to me
Undeterred by that jackass who has been hassling Carmen for long time. Carmen and his executive board keep everyone in the loop and they let us know how hard they are working despite the constant stress that guy puts on Carmen.
SHAME SHAME SHAME everyone knows it was you Ryan who wrote letter.
Have you seen this letter that was written to the City Council? How do you know what was written in that letter? Maybe it’s just a ploy to deflect fault away from them for negotiating a bad contract?
Many have been following the lawsuits Fred Leblanc, Carmen Santoro, Rob Hyndmen and OPFFA/OFF have been involved with against Grieves and Atkinson.
The understanding is that Oakville is unique. The aforementioned, Carmen and his followers have bullied and ridiculed people they’ve worked with for many years.
In reference to that event, does anyone know or have contact info for the “jackass” that is being referred to? There are some who are interested in speaking with that particular individual.
Don’t know the guy, not sure of his name but people I know say he’s from oakville. Heard he’s continually being put through the wringer from the union executive board. They say he’s nice but rather unusual and doesn’t trust many people there and has become a bit of a loose cannon from the way union treats him and others… so good luck with that!
I’m not stupid. Ryan Szacas you are a coward and a donkey for writing letter. You have taken food off brothers and sisters families table. You can lie to management as many times as you want but we know it was you.
A few years ago Carmine while acting as an Advocate for the Board of Arbitration he would bill the Local Union/or his own Local for Substitution Days, Travel, Hotel accommodation, Mileage plus other expenses while staying at his girlfriend’s house (at this time not sure how much he charged her to stay). In addition, he received his full-time Captain salary with the town of Oakville and I.A.F.F fee of over $300 per day.
The Peterborough union Local and Carmen agreed on a gift/price for Camren’s advocacy work, which he calls a gift. A gift is what someone gives; not a fee for service rendered. After the contract was signed Carmen Santoro stated he wanted more of a gift for the work he had done which was between $10,000 and $12,000.
Due to the increased gift, the Peterborough association had to assess Active and Retired members to pay Carmine’s new increased bill.
Carmine then proceeded to Brantford to do their Arbitration and charged the same, Mileage, Substitution Days, $300 per day USD and a $10,000 gift.
This income is to be reported to Canada Revenue Agency. Carmen did the same for his own local of Oakville . An audit was done showing the results of not paying tax. When questioned Carmine threatened, yelled and initiated the process to get the local board kicked off.
When Court Claim came against Carmin and the family, Carmin stepped down from his job as president of his precious OPFFA claiming health reasons and then PTSD. At the same time, six other executive members stepped down with Carmine once they realized they may be held responsible for being a part of the ridicule lawsuit as well.
Funny enough while on Worker’s Compensation receiving full pay, I’ve heard, Carmine did not go back to work on light duty and was unable to perform any type of work for over 2 years. Yet Carmine Santoro continued to be paid as the president in Oakville, took days off sick yet went to Labor meetings with Management, attended work golf tournaments, lobbied for another best friend Kevin Flynn (ex-Minister of Labor) and vacationed in Florida.
Carmen as President also appointed himself to be the Negotiation Chair and on Grievance Committee for which he received remuneration. In addition, charging his own Oakville fire dept. union local $5000 gift for work he was already being compensated for on these committees, claiming it is a gift not a fee for service.
Part of Carmine’s lawsuit against Paul Atkinson and Colin Grieves, which he accused them of not claiming their gifts on the earnings of non-dues paying retirees (while Carmine and his union insisted they did not want to represent retirees at all). Paul Atkinson and Colin Grieves decided that all should be represented, took the reins and made the decision that their Retirees should be represented as well.
As a retiree who Carmine and his union wanted to have nothing to do with and not give us any help, I thank Paul and Colin with my sincerest gratitude.
Santoro is the apex of this behaviour one would think. Santoro has built on what was done by others for many years of this opffa, this so called union.
It shouldn’t be lost that while the local unions are negotiating for better benefits, wages and work contracts the opffa refuses to provide an above board living wage to its staff (santoro, Atkinson, Grieve and all the other “Advocates”) so that they don’t have to go out and make up the difference between what they are paid by the opffa and the fair wage they deserve.
That being said, one could surmise that Atkinson and Grieve did so well that the little man Santoro felt he had been slighted and needed to teach a lesson. I guess that he wasn’t given his “due” like a real godfather would receive, that’s what started his vendetta.