How a dispute between Pickering neighbours exposed Ontario’s broken municipal accountability system
To understand the story of the Drew family and 4894 Old Brock Road, consider these three short vignettes.
1.
Adam and Evelyn Drew pull up outside the stout, two-storey side–split in rural Pickering. The couple are bubbling with the kind of excitement potentially profound life changes can trigger. They’ve worked hard for years to get to this moment. Raising children, going to school, running a small business and saving money for a collective purpose — their dream home. A future with a country escape, designed just the way they like, had been willed into existence from the day they were married.
They inspect the property at 4894 Old Brock Road, its backyard overgrown with weeds, the skeletons of dead trees hanging in every direction. Inside, they detect a strange smell.
They shrug it off.
Their dream is just on the other side of these superficial issues.
“Let’s do it,” they agree.
2.
Five years later, Adam watches sewage bubble from the new septic field in the backyard. Liquid emerges from the earth seemingly out of nowhere, pressing up between blades of grass until it is a single sheet of brown.
It’s a warm spring day in 2021, but the windows are closed. It’s a hopeless attempt to block out the vomit-inducing odour.
Since they bought the split-level in 2016 and started work on their dream home the year after, Adam has learned a lot about how dominos topple, one after another.
When building a house—and things go smoothly—tasks, permits and construction flow seamlessly from one milestone to the next.
When one minor detail goes wrong, the dominos start falling.
Staring out his back window, his eyes shift from the malfunctioning septic field, to what might be the first domino.
His neighbour’s back deck.
Stephen Birch and his wife Wendy Van Kempen had rebuilt the deck earlier that year. The two-storey patio initially jutted a sharp corner onto the Drew’s property, forcing a rebuild. As part of these two construction projects, the neighbours hauled in a lot of soil.
Engineering reports Adam commissioned found this altered the grade between the two properties so significantly that all the groundwater meant to flow toward the rear of their properties now pooled directly in Adam’s septic field—filling it and pushing the foul smelling waste to the surface. His neighbours argue it is the changes Adam made to his own property that are causing the foul flooding, which has in turn damaged their property.
Adam soon realized, after talking to the neighbour, they had done all the work without any of the permits. The proper preparations to construct such a structure were not followed. After navigating the “permit nightmare” when building his own house, Adam was surprised.
He asked Birch about it—they were still talking then—he shrugged it off.
“Oh, we don’t need surveys, we know the councillor and we’ve got connections with the City of Pickering, we have friends that work there,” Birch replied with a shrug.
3.
Adam is on the phone with Premier Doug Ford.
It’s been four years since that first overflowing deluge of sewage.
Nothing has changed.
Adam is tired.
He took stress leave from work for six months. His doctors tell him he needs to find ways to ease the tension, and he’s started taking medication to relieve stress.
But he can’t give up. There has been too much money spent, and there needs to be some accountability for what has happened to him and his family.
He tells the Premier about City of Pickering officials ignoring his requests to enforce their own bylaws against his neighbours so the grading issue can finally be fixed. It is no longer just about the smell. The free-flowing sewage poses a significant health risk to him and his family if it enters their nearby well.
Adam shares his fear that political connections are muddying the municipal waters and preventing staff from doing their jobs. Adam watched former Pickering councillor Kip Van Kempen—the father of his neighbour, Wendy—stand at the edge of his property alongside current Councillor David Pickles, the two of them pointing and studying the work he’s done.
Pickles knocked on Adam’s door the same day, delivering what Adam interpreted as veiled threats.
“You need to be careful,” Pickles said to him. The Councillor denies ever saying this.
Adam told the elected official to get off his property. The councillor claims this conversation ended amicably.
Still on the phone with Ford, Ontario’s leader considers all the information.
“I understand your concerns,” Ford told him.
When Adam hung up, he was left with a slight sense of hope that something might change. Someone may finally be held accountable for the lies, the broken laws and intimidation.
Then the phone rang.
The caller ID said KEVIN ASHE.
The Mayor of Pickering.
The Premier works fast.
Initially, Mayor Ashe was receptive. He said the Premier had reached out to him directly and recommended he connect.
As Adam began to share his story, outlining the same concerns he had for Premier Ford, Mayor Ashe’s tone shifted.
“Oh yeah, you’re the guy who lives next to Van Kempen’s daughter,” the mayor said.
The sense of hope was snuffed out.
The dream home now seems more like a nightmare.
Mayor Ashe did not respond to a request for comment.
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Adam Drew has exposed evidence that senior staff at the City of Pickering have refused to enforce bylaws against his neighbour after changes made to the grading of their property encroached on his own, causing his septic system to malfunction. (Joel Wittnebel/The Pointer)
The Pointer has been untangling what happened at Adam Drew’s property on Old Brock Road for more than a year.
The investigation has uncovered blatant abuses of process by City staff, an abdication of duty to enforce existing laws, and a complete failure of the accountability mechanisms available to taxpayers to confront elected municipal officials and staff when wrongdoing might have taken place.
Adam complained to the OPP and it launched an anti-rackets investigation into Councillor Pickles and the City of Pickering. It was closed earlier this year without any charges being laid.
The Drews are currently suing their neighbours for the damage on their property, and are being countersued in return.
The Birch-Van Kempens argue in their own lawsuit that the changes Adam made while building his house are causing the flooding issues, which has in turn damaged their property.
The Drews are also involved in active litigation against the City of Pickering over the failure to enforce the City’s bylaws that require the Birch-Van Kempen family to fix the grading issues on their property. One of the City’s top engineering officials concluded the grading changes made by the Birch-Van Kempens were encroaching on Adam’s property.
Emails obtained by Adam and shared with The Pointer show City of Pickering officials acknowledged the grading change and the impact on Adam’s property and admitting there was a “gap in procedure” that allowed the changes made by the Birch-Van Kempens to proceed without the proper approvals.
One email addressed to “Ms Van Kempen”, written by a top engineering official with the City, stated: “I would like to bring to your attention, that you have completed grading on your property for which a fill permit was required and you did not apply for one. I have attached the approved grading plan for your property which has been altered as a result of the works completed on your property such that the drainage swale that was created to direct drainage to the rear of the property has been removed and that the grading alterations have encroached on to your neighbour’s property.”
Pickering’s “Fill and Topsoil Disturbance By-law” states that any fill work done without a fill permit, if one is required, is a violation of the by-law, which was passed to “prohibit” any “alteration of the grade of land” that requires a permit, without one.
“Every person who contravenes any section of this by-law is guilty of an offence and upon conviction is liable to a fine or penalty for each offence, exclusive of costs as prescribed by the Provincial Offences Act.”
Adam was not given the email from the senior City of Pickering engineer that informed the Birch-Van Kempens the grading work they did on their property (“for which a fill permit was required”) had resulted in the “drainage swale” that was supposed to direct flow “to the rear of the property” being “removed” and that “the grading alterations have encroached on to your neighbour’s property.”
The email highlighting the violation was not in any of the documents Adam received following his detailed FOI requests to the municipality seeking exactly this type of information; and it was not handed over in the discovery process in his ongoing lawsuit with the City. Instead, Adam received it as part of his ongoing litigation with the Birch-Van Kempens.
City officials did not explain why this critical piece of information was apparently withheld from the Drews, or why they have refused to address the issues one of their top engineering officials had acknowledged.
The information was also not shared with the Committee of Adjustment when granting the Birch-Van Kempens a variance for their deck for being too close to Adam’s property. It was not given to the Ontario Land Tribunal when the Drew family appealed the committee’s decision. In both instances, City officials claimed to have no issues with the changes to the Birch Van-Kempen property, despite the conclusion of a top engineering official that the changes made by them had caused an encroachment onto Adam’s property.
City officials declined to answer detailed questions from The Pointer, citing the ongoing litigation.
City of Pickering lawyer Paul Bigioni emailed The Pointer after questions were sent to Councillor Pickles. Bigioni denied a City staff member “admitted to a violation”—despite the clear evidence provided by Adam from the engineering official’s email.
Councillor Pickles denies any wrongdoing, and says he has no connection to Kip Van Kempen or Adam’s neighbours.
When approached by a reporter from The Pointer at a Pickering town hall meeting on September 17, he declined to speak on the record about Adam’s complaints, referring to him as “the nutcase”.
In a detailed response to questions sent after the meeting, Pickles said: “[M]y only real interaction with Adam Drew was to knock on his door as a matter of courtesy as there was a neighbours dispute back in September 2021, about 5 years ago, in which we had a 10 minute discussion. Since that time Adam Drew has consistently harassed me.”
Adam denied harassing Councillor Pickles, and has been told by Durham Regional Police that the councillor has been advised to stay away from his property. Councillor Pickles says similar direction to stay away from him has been given to Mr. Drew.
The councillor continued: “Several times a day I get inquiries or complaints from residents. On behalf of these residents I forward their inquiries or complaints to appropriate staff for review, consideration, and response. Often staff will follow up directly with the resident for more information or to provide a response. I do not give direction to any staff, they make decisions in respect to the authority they have or that of senior staff. City staff do not report to me or take direction from me. I did not encourage staff on how to deal with any bylaw enforcement efforts at 4900 Old Brock Road.”
Pickles was first elected to council in 1997 and is seeking re-election in this year’s municipal race. Kip Van Kempen served on council for six years in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s before unsuccessfully running for mayor in 1994.
Van Kempen did not respond to questions about his connections to Councillor Pickles, or his efforts detailed in correspondence shared by Adam, to push elected officials to expedite the permit work on his daughter’s property.
Allan Herman, lawyer for the Birch-Van Kempen family, said as the matter is still before the courts, “my clients will not be communicating with you about it.”
He continued: “If you are considering publishing a story about this unfortunate dispute between neighbours, please exercise due caution, as the circumstances lend themselves to grave risk that the story would be defamatory. Minimal investigation, as well as a review of the engineer’s reports and OLT decision, will make this clear to you.”
When discussing the legal turmoil, the financial burden it has placed on him and his family and what it has done to their lives, Adam gets choked up.
“This was a dream of ours, and if we had known this, if we had known how the City of Pickering is, we would have never chosen to build our dream home in Pickering,” he told The Pointer.
The same resiliency that allowed him to see the potential in a barren backyard and an aging split-level house, serves him in the ongoing legal battle which has become more about principles.
His legal costs have ballooned into the hundreds of thousands.
“I never knew how much these people could damage and hurt people and bend rules without accountability,” he said. “I think a lot of people when they face those kinds of battles with a powerful city, they believe you don’t fight City Hall and I think that’s what they’re relying on.
“But we’re not going to take it, we’re not going to accept that.”
The house at 4894 Old Brock Road that Adam and Evelyn Drew purchased in 2016. The ongoing construction of their dream home can be seen in the background. (Google Maps)
Adam admits before all of this, he didn’t pay much attention to local politics, or what was happening at the municipal level.
He didn’t know who Councillor David Pickles was, and thought nothing of it when his neighbour said they had “friends” that worked at the City of Pickering, or connections to the councillor that saved them having to obtain proper permits for their new deck.
The new deck, as it turned out, extended across the property line.
The survey markers Adam had installed between the two properties during the construction of his new home had been removed.
Adam first contacted the City about the new deck in early April 2021, unsure of exactly what to do. The key concern was the removal of a drainage swale between the two properties. The small ditch, meant to carry water runoff to the rear of the property, was gone, allowing water to flow across the property line, directly into Adam’s septic field.
A call to the customer service line accomplished nothing, as the operator quickly dismissed his concerns. It took a subsequent email, outlining the issue in detail, for the City to act, assigning an inspector to come and review the deck.
When Adam saw him arrive some days later, he cracked open his back window. After the meeting between the neighbours, their contractor and the inspector concluded, Adam heard someone shout, “I fucking told you we were past the property line!”
Neighbour Stephen Birch asked Adam if he would be willing to share the surveys he had commissioned as part of his home construction, which Adam did.
But then things began to change.
On April 7, 2021, Kip Van Kempen wrote to Councillor David Pickles and then-regional councillor Kevin Ashe (Ashe would be elected mayor in 2022). In the email, Kip claims his daughter’s property is having serious flooding issues since Adam installed the septic field in the rear yard.
Adam’s septic field was approved as part of the permits for his new home and signed off on by Durham Region Public Health.
When talking with Birch, no flooding issues were ever mentioned, Adam says.
In his email, Kip asks if the two councillors are able to assist in “getting this expedited done and issued”.
Less than 10 minutes after receiving the email, Pickles forwarded it to Kyle Bentley, the City’s director of city building and chief building official.
“Can you look into this both the drainage and permit issue and see how we can assist the resident move forward.”
Councillor Pickles told The Pointer this is a common action he takes when contacted by residents with issues.
Emails from the City acknowledge the Birch-Van Kempen deck was built without a required permit. This was illegal.
The next day, the request from Pickles appeared to have already been passed through the bureaucratic chain to inspectors who were well aware of the councillor’s involvement.
“You may get a call from Pickles about a deck at this property,” Steve Heidebrecht, a City inspector in the Building Services department wrote to Carl Kolbe, the Deputy Chief Building Official on April 8, 2021. “The owners are applying for a permit but are somehow connected to him and they have called him to see if could (sic) help to expedite the permit application.”
“Thanks, several e-mails have already been sent,” Kolbe responded. “Based on the sketch that was provided (insufficient information), there may be delays in the issuance of a permit.”
By April 12, the drawings for the deck still had not been completed, and staff were beginning to realize something was off with the application.
“This one is contentious,” acting clerk in the building services department, Nicole Wilmot-Bush wrote. “(Redacted) had called about it but not provided full information. (Redacted) has begun to build without a permit and it was reported. Once told how long it would take and what we required (redacted) got the councillors involved.” The redacted party is Adam’s neighbour Wendy Van Kempen.
Throughout the summer of 2021, the tensions between the Drews and Birch-Van Kempens began to escalate. What started as a cordial relationship between neighbours quickly turned nasty. Adam noticed his neighbour’s demeanour shift from friendly and conversational to defensive and confrontational after the involvement of the City.
Adam also began to feel like City officials were questioning him, more than his neighbours.
Despite his home construction having acquired all of the proper permits from the City and Region of Durham, including approved grading plans, and public health sign-off on the new septic field, City officials began to question the changes made on his property.
In July, when attempting to have the City’s bylaw department get involved, they shrugged off his issues with the Birch-Van Kempens and focused on him.
“The City is awaiting submissions from you regarding the lot grading and garage changes. As both properties have made changes to their properties, many of your concerns are civil issues. Once you submit the required information, staff will review and determine what if any issues require City involvement,” Jason Litoborski, Supervisor of Licensing and Enforcement, wrote to Adam. It’s unclear why this information was being requested after the changes Adam made had already been approved.
No fines or by-law infractions were ever levied against the Birch Van-Kempens.
Two images taken from approximately the same location on Adam Drew’s property in Pickering. The top image shows the area prior to the changes made by his neighbour. The bottom, taken in September 2026, shows the land as it is now following the addition of a significant amount of soil on the neighbour’s property. (Top: Submitted; Bottom: Joel Wittnebel/The Pointer)
During this period, there is a clear record of Councillor Pickles repeatedly communicating with staff for updates on what was happening on the property.
In August, he emailed the inspector on the file requesting a call for an update “on our next action”.
At the time, the Drew family was continuing to deal with the waste flowing into the backyard.
In September, Councillor Pickles requested another update from staff on what was happening on the property.
In an email chain with the subject line, “Re Continued grading and drainage issues from 4894 Old Brock Road”, Pickles wrote to City staff at 9:07 p.m. on a Sunday:
“I understand the Region inspected (redacted) system and did not find it had failed? Can you update me on the remaining eg grading issues on both properties. I plan to visit the resident in the next couple days?” He was referring to Adam’s septic system.
In response to questions from The Pointer, which referred to these communications, Pickles said aside from forwarding the initial email from Kip to City staff, “I don't recall any further involvement.”
The septic system in Adam’s backyard was inspected by Durham Region Public Health following its installation as part of his home construction. It was approved without issues.
The email obtained by the Drews through the ongoing litigation with their neighbours, makes it clear that one of the City’s top officials had already concluded the grading changes made by the Birch Van-Kempens were encroaching on Adam’s property and that what they had done without a permit was illegal.
Councillor Pickles is CCd on the August 24, 2021 email.
After Pickles wrote that he would be visiting the property, he emailed staff, asking: “Can you confirm that the city is following up with the respective property owners to remind and ensure all outstanding matters under the city’s authority are brought into compliance.”
It is unclear what compliance issues he was referencing in relation to Adam’s property.
The conclusion reached by Helgesen regarding the grading changes confirmed the findings of an independent engineering report commissioned by the Drews the week prior that found the flooding problem was emanating from the grading changes on the neighbour’s property. Three more engineering reports in the years since came to the same conclusion. The final report confirmed that 150 cubic meters of soil had been added to the neighbour's property. The City of Pickering’s website informs residents that: “Any work involving the addition or removal of more than 2 dump truck loads (20 cubic meters) may be subject to a Fill & Topsoil Disturbance Permit.” The elevation change now saw all the water previously meant to flow to the rear of the neighbour’s property, being directed right into Adam’s septic field. The excess water was causing the entire system to malfunction.
Herman, the lawyer for the Birch-Van Kempen’s, told The Pointer three engineering reports commissioned by his clients have confirmed the opposite.
Adam criticized these reports for failing to take into account the approved grading plan. He says they blatantly ignore the requirement for a 0.6-metre buffer of undisturbed soil between the properties. They also do not address his video evidence showing water discharging from the Birch-Van Kempen property onto his own.
The next day, Helgesen wrote to Adam, informing him City officials would be meeting with the Birch-Van Kempens to discuss the grading.
Helgesen also requested Adam confirm that the changes made to his property comply with the grading plan. The engineers for the Drew’s had already submitted a grading certificate for the property. It’s unclear why Helgesen was not aware of this.
This has become a serious issue in the years since, as City officials, in their legal arguments against Adam, argue he is not in compliance with his own approved grading plan. However, the only reason he’s not is a result of the grading changes made by his neighbour which altered his own grade–as previously acknowledged by Helgesen. Adam argues he should not be responsible for paying to fix an issue caused by his neighbours—work that was completed without a permit.
Helgesen admitted to Adam in 2021 that when it came to the work on his neighbour’s property, there appears to be “a gap in the procedure” that allowed the work to proceed without a permit.
“The City will try to address the matters as best we can going forward considering these circumstances,” Helgesen wrote.
But then, things changed again, and for some reason, the City of Pickering completely ignored the conclusions Helgesen reached at the end of August, 2021—despite none of the issues he raised being addressed.
In early September 2021, in preparing comments for the upcoming Committee of Adjustment hearing related to the Birch-Van Kempen’s request for a variance because their newly constructed deck was too close to the property line, Helgesen’s concerns were nowhere to be found.
Kolbe, the Deputy Chief Building Official who had been involved from the beginning, wrote to a planner on the file informing him that when it came to the Committee, “Keep the comments at this time as ‘no issues with this file’”.
This is despite the fact that as recently as September 2, 2021, Helgesen had written to Adam and confirmed, “The City of Pickering was not consulted regarding the alteration of the grade of the (Birch-Van Kempen) property”.
City officials did not answer questions about why they turned a blind eye to the conclusions of their own senior staff member weeks later.
On September 8, the committee approved the deck, despite the Drew’s objections.
No elevation figures, professional surveys, or drainage plans were provided to the committee, all of which are typically filed in such cases. The concerns of City staff like Helgesen were not shared.
In reviewing hundreds of side-yard variance applications, Adam could find no other instance in Pickering when drainage was not addressed.
Adam believes it is pretty obvious what is happening.
“Every single side-yard variance application that went to the Committee of Adjustment, the City states drainage must be addressed. The only one where the engineering department had no comments, was our neighbours, the friends of David Pickles.”
Councillor Pickles denies having any relationship with the Van Kempens.
A week after the approval, Councillor Pickles showed up on Adam’s doorstep. There had been no prior communication from Pickles to Adam about the visit.
(Top) Former Pickering councillor Kip Van Kempen and Councillor David Pickles inspecting Adam’s property. (Bottom) City of Pickering Regional Councillor David Pickles approaching the front door of Adam’s house at 4894 Old Brock Road. Adam says the councillor was attempting to intimidate him. (Submitted)
The Councillor said he was there to discuss the issues between the two neighbours. Adam had already seen him walking the neighbour’s property alongside Kip, the former councillor and his neighbour’s father.
Adam quickly turned the conversation around to the Committee of Adjustment decision the week before, questioning how they could have approved the variance without the necessary information.
Pickles smiled: “I appoint them,” Adam recalls him saying.
Then he told Adam, “you need to be careful.” Pickles denies making this statement and denies trying to intimidate Adam.
“That’s when things got heated and voices started getting raised…That’s when I basically said get off my property,” Adam recalls. “I thought he was trying to intimidate us.”
Councillor Pickles has a very different recollection of the conversation.
“I knocked on his door, he was a bit stand offish at first but I heard him out and I thought the conversation ended cordially,” Pickles told The Pointer. “I noted I would take what I heard from both neighbours back to staff to see if they could find a resolution to concerns on both sides. I never said ‘be careful’ and I did not try to dissuade anyone, but I would have suggested it would be good to find a mutual resolution.”
Adam appealed the Committee of Adjustment decision to the Ontario Land Tribunal. The City of Pickering provided no comments and failed to provide information about the previous conclusions reached by Helgesen.
City officials have not explained why this information was not given to the OLT.
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A version of what is happening to the Drews is happening in towns, cities and bergs across Ontario.
The Pointer has received tips from desperate residents across the province seeking help after they lost hope in the mechanisms meant to enforce laws and achieve accountability.
“As a resident of Tay Valley Township (TVT), I have been fighting for openness, transparency and accountability for the last 7 years,” one reader wrote.
“Municipal staff blatantly lie to Council and the public. The TVT solicitor is the Integrity Commissioner. I have definitive proof he has submitted false reports to Council and has benefited from staff’s litigious nature. Council refuses to act.”
In St. Catharines, a mayor abused taxpayer dollars to publicly support Premier Doug Ford in the last election. It’s a violation of the Code of Conduct Mayor Mat Siscoe signed when he was sworn in. The Integrity Commissioner recommended no penalty.
In Brampton, Patrick Brown was caught on camera secretly getting ready to play hockey with his buddies inside a City arena during COVID-19 lockdowns while children and the general public were not allowed. The Integrity Commissioner he had hired, Muneeza Sheikh, who was connected to Brown, found he did nothing wrong.
Her report ignored evidence that was obvious to anyone who watched the video, which has been viewed almost 300,000 times.
In Niagara Falls, a councillor rallied a fire fighter club to fill council chambers to prevent a women's rights group from coming to speak on municipal accountability. The councillor responsible, Mike Strange, was facing a domestic assault charge at the time before he was found not guilty of beating his intimate partner earlier this year. The Integrity Commissioner found he did nothing wrong when trying to block out the group. It was all just “politics in its most basic form,” Michael Maynard concluded.
In Rideau Lakes Township, the fractured council dismissed two separate integrity commissioners in the span of a single month after a large enough faction on council did not agree with the findings of their reports.
One municipality hired a lawyer as their accountability watchdog, unaware he had been suspended by the Law Society of Ontario for misappropriating $63,000 from a client's trust account. Another appointed someone with a criminal record to hold the reigns of accountability.
Guy Giorno, a lawyer and integrity commissioner who has handled the job for 20 Ontario municipalities, told the provincial government how broken this system was. The two examples above came from a speech he delivered during a PC consultation for Bill 9, a piece of legislation that was meant to fix this “wild west” municipal accountability system. While the regulations are now under review, critics have said they fail to address many of the major issues plaguing cities and towns.
Giorno said having no set qualifications for municipal integrity commissioners in Ontario has led to numerous questionable investigations in the province.
“In North Stormont, a female councillor felt that she was excluded from decision-making by ‘an old boys’ club’ of the other councillors, all male. The integrity commissioner, in his wisdom, found the woman had harassed the men by using a ‘gender-based stereotype’ that was unwelcome,” Giorno shared. “The mayor of Arnprior denied that there was racism in eastern Ontario, and the integrity commissioner of Arnprior said that, no, it wasn’t a breach. A councillor disagreed with the mayor and said racism does exist and the Black community deserved an apology, and the integrity commissioner ruled that she was in the wrong. He said her pay should be suspended for 30 days.”
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Adam took his complaint to the City of Pickering’s integrity commissioner in August of 2023.
He shared what he had been able to uncover in the more than two years since that first sewage eruption in the spring of 2021, particularly about the involvement of Councillor Pickles behind the scenes.
He expressed his concerns that the councillor had influenced staff to look the other way on bylaw enforcement. While the Birch-Van Kempens obtained a retroactive building permit for the deck, they were never required to obtain a fill permit for the grade changes City officials previously admitted were encroaching on Adam’s property. Pickles denies having any involvement with bylaw staff or directing them to take, or not take, any action.
The visit by Councillor Pickles in September 2021 was a crucial piece of Adam’s complaint.
He shared with the IC the details of that testy exchange.
“I explained it is not his responsibility nor does he have
the authority to interfere with the issues between us and the neighbour. I further expressed that he was overstepping his position and was not welcome on our property – I asked him to leave. I also explained that I was advised by our neighbours that they had a relationship with him and that they told me they were using him to help them,” Adam wrote in that initial complaint filed in 2023. “He (Pickles) arrogantly laughed and proceeded to make comments that we interpreted to be:
a. a threat that we needed to be careful.
b. he indicated that he had influence over the Committee of Adjustment, that had approved a variance for our neighbours.
c. and that he was speaking to senior staff to assist and help his friends (our neighbour).”
In October of 2023, this complaint was dismissed by Principle’s Integrity. The report concluded that a “reasonable person” would see no conflict in what Councillor Pickles had done, and any friendship between Councillor Pickles and former councillor Kip Van Kempen did not rise to the level of a conflict of interest.
“An engaged member of Council might count hundreds of ‘friends’ in the community. Unless there is more to the relationship than mere friendship, which would support a belief that the member is incapable of impartiality, it is expected that the member will nevertheless exercise their powers impartially and in the public interest,” the report details.”
The use of the “reasonable person test” completely ignores other language in the City of Pickering’s Council Code of Conduct, which includes much stronger direction for guiding councillors on avoiding conflicts like the one outlined by Adam.
“Members are committed to acting and being seen to act with integrity and impartiality that will bear the closest scrutiny,” the Code of Conduct establishes, noting councillors should “interpret the phrase ‘conflict of interest’ in its broadest possible terms”.
The Code also advises, “At no time shall a Member of Council involve themselves in matters of administration or departmental management.”
The IC concluded from the evidence that Councillor Pickles was “guiding a constituent” through the permit process and his actions were “nothing unusual”.
The report did not address the details of Councillor Pickles’s visit to Adam’s property, or the substance of that exchange. The IC merely said there was nothing wrong with a councillor visiting a constituent to get more information about a problem. The IC appears to have ignored Adam’s claims of intimidation altogether.
Adam has tried repeatedly to provide the IC with more information to substantiate his complaint and for the investigation to be reopened.
“There is enough evidence that shows Councillor Pickles was in fact using his position to provide special treatment to his friends. The core issue here is that people who follow the process to obtain permits before doing construction are put at a huge disadvantage. Meaning, do taxpayers get to the front of the line if a city councillor is their friend?” Adam wrote in his follow-up requests to the IC. “So that other taxpayers who follow the process and don't violate bylaws have to wait? Why do others have to wait months to get a permit, but if you are friends with Councillor Pickles the timeline is shorter? Would a reasonable person conclude this to be an integrity issue?”
The IC has refused to look at any of his further evidence.
“I think it’s such a huge issue if this is happening in cities where there is no accountability for mayors, councillors or senior staff who can manipulate laws based on preferential treatment for their friends and people that they know, while simultaneously they’re paying the bill for things like the integrity commissioner,” Adam says. He believes the PC government and Bill 9 should have gone further to address these particular issues.
Five years later, there is still no relief for Adam and his family.
The lawsuit is ongoing with the City of Pickering.
Months after filing his Statement of Claim, the City had yet to file anything in response. More than 90 days passed without a Statement of Defence, so Adam introduced a motion to find them in default.
Two days later the City filed a defence.
“They know this costs people a ton of money. They’re just trying to wear me down,” Adam says.
During the discovery phase of the suit, Pickering’s lawyers refused to allow key figures like Paal Helgesen to answer even the most basic questions. When asked by Adam’s lawyers about his August 2021 emails referencing the neighbour's grading changes and the impacts on Adam’s property, the City solicitors blocked the question, claiming it wasn’t relevant.
At trial, a judge will ultimately make that decision, but for now, Adam is left waiting, and spending heavily on legal fees.
In the lawsuit with his neighbours, the discovery phase is complete, and they are now attempting to coordinate a trial date. Adam believes the Birch-Van Kempen lawyers are attempting to delay until November, which would mark five years since the case was filed, meaning it could be tossed out.
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Throughout this ordeal, Adam was posting about his allegations on local Facebook groups.
It led to a neighbour knocking on his door.
The man was in tears.
He lives up the street from Adam and across the road a large development project is underway. The work on the property has significantly altered the grade of the landscape and created significant flooding, causing thousands of dollars in damage to the man’s property.
The man said he had approached the City about enforcing bylaws against the developer to prevent the flooding.
City officials have done nothing to alleviate the flooding.
“It was my scenario, but ten times worse,” Adam says. “It makes me sick that the City and Pickles are treating a senior citizen this way.”
In August of this year, the neighbour called Adam about another flood.
When he arrived to see if he could help, Councillor Pickles was there along with City staff.
Adam kept his distance, not wanting to engage with the councillor. Following the previous visit to Adam’s property, the Durham Regional Police had advised the councillor to refrain from returning. Pickles says Durham Police have given similar directions to Adam to stay away from him.
But when Adam arrived home afterward, Councillor Pickles was parked outside his house.
Shocked, Adam approached the vehicle, with his phone taping the entire interaction.
Adam told him to leave. Councillor Pickles can be seen inside the vehicle on his phone.
Before pulling away, the councillor twirls a finger around his forehead, clearly calling Adam crazy, and pulls away.
When Adam contacted the City of Pickering about this, the City solicitor said, “It seems that you were stalking the Councillor when he was dealing with a matter that had nothing to do with you."
It raises the question: who is the City lawyer working for, the taxpayers of Pickering, or its local politicians?
Adam has filed an Integrity Commissioner complaint against the councillor for the behaviour–which appears to be a blatant violation of the Code of Conduct.
In a response to Adam, the IC agreed the conduct “would not appear to reflect the high standards set out in the Code”, but they were unable to investigate.
The Municipal Act prohibits an integrity commissioner from investigating complaints after nomination day (August 21, 2026) of an election year.
Councillor Pickles says he was actually parked in front of the neighbour’s house, checking up on a development happening across the street.
“I was parked in front of 4880 Old Brock Road which to my knowledge is not Adam Drew's home. A large pickup truck pulled up behind me and Adam Drew appeared in my closed window very close with a cell phone apparently taking photos or filming and yelling and making hand gestures,” Pickles told The Pointer. “I put down my phone and slowly drove away, being mindful that he was very close to my car. I don't know what hand gesture is appropriate when being unwantedly approached and accosted by an angry looking person but I think I did make a hand gesture in a startled and alarmed state of mind. The Integrity Commissioner has already noted that such a hand gesture was not appropriate.”
The flooding issues in Adam’s backyard continue.
The entire system had to be dug out and fixed in 2023.
Visiting the property in September, when the wind blew, the odour of sewage was unmistakable.
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