Vas Georgiou walks into the Superior Court of Justice Courthouse, in Toronto, on Nov. 12. Mr. Georgiou was part of the team selecting companies to bid on the St. Michael’s contract when he was also working on behalf of commercial property companies controlled by John Aquino, prosecutors allege.Christopher Katsarov
Lawyers defending the two men facing criminal fraud charges stemming from the $300-million redevelopment of Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital argued at the pair’s trial on Wednesday that no single person could decide who won the contract but that Bondfield was the “obvious” choice.
Vas Georgiou, the former chief administrative officer of St. Michael’s, and John Aquino, the former president of Bondfield Construction Co. Ltd., are each charged with two counts of fraud over $5,000. They have both pleaded not guilty and the allegations against them have not been proven.
The Crown has said it will present evidence at trial of the two men’s undisclosed business ties, as well as their secret communications throughout the bidding process for the hospital contract, which Bondfield won in 2015.
Mr. Georgiou was part of the team selecting companies to bid on the St. Michael’s contract when he was also working on behalf of commercial property companies controlled by Mr. Aquino, prosecutors allege. Bondfield won the bid over two larger rivals for the job of renovating and expanding the hospital, a project that has as its centrepiece a 17-storey patient-care tower.
Peter Brauti, lawyer for Mr. Georgiou, argued in court Wednesday that Bondfield won the contract fair and square. He suggested during cross-examination of a Crown expert witness that policies and procedures in place at Infrastructure Ontario (IO), the agency that manages the province’s major public sector building projects, ensure that no one person could have influenced the outcome of the competitive bidding process.
“There were too many safeguards and too many people involved for any one person to throw a wrench into the process,” Mr. Brauti said as he questioned David Ho, the former chief procurement officer at IO who was called by the Crown as an expert witness on the procurement process.
Alan Gold, Mr. Aquino’s lawyer, said during his cross-examination of Mr. Ho that Bondfield was the “obvious” winner of the hospital procurement.
“Bondfield did not need any help, savoury or unsavoury, in winning any projects,” Mr. Gold said.
Bondfield submitted a bid for $299-million, he noted, in line with the $300-million budget IO and the hospital set for the project. EllisDon, another bidder, was disqualified because of its failing grade on its design component. PCL Construction, the third company on the short list, submitted a bid for $538-million.
Mr. Gold asked Mr. Ho whether, during his time at IO, he had ever seen a contender awarded a contract whose bid was 75 per cent higher than the budget for the project.
“No, not in the scenario where the low bid is compliant,” Mr. Ho responded.
Mr. Ho was also questioned by Mr. Brauti about an issue that arose in the summer of 2014, after all the contenders had submitted their bids.
The four-person team evaluating the requests for proposals, including Mr. Georgiou, did not reach consensus, something that was mandatory before the project could proceed. The impasse arose because another team member, Derrick Toigo, an IO vice-president at the time, did not think the project could be done for $300-million, Mr. Brauti said. Mr. Toigo’s refusal to change his position, he said, created an impasse between him and the other team members.
Mr. Ho testified that Mr. Toigo had access to the price each company had bid, which no one was supposed to have until after the design and technical components were evaluated. Because of this, Mr. Ho said, “We considered the potential Mr. Toigo was biased.”
The solution to the impasse was to enlist a third-party consultant to review the submissions. After a few weeks of analysis and negotiations, evaluators reached consensus and approved Bondfield’s bid.
IO also set up a special committee of the board, which produced a report in June, 2016, declaring that the procurement for St. Michael’s was not compromised.
Mr. Ho testified that he was of the view that the procurement was conducted fairly because of the third-party additional safeguards.
Crown counsel Rachel Young followed up by asking Mr. Ho if the special committee addressed whether the criminal offence of fraud had been committed. “No,” he responded.
Mr. Georgiou and Mr. Aquino were each charged in March, 2023. They were also initially charged with one count each of bribery, which is defined in the Criminal Code as paying or accepting secret commissions. In February, prosecutors dropped the secret commission charges, acknowledging in court that they could not meet the “high bar” of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Special to The Globe and Mail