EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media website devoted exclusively to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.
The lobbying company run by a former longtime close aide and confidante of Doug Ford's has built a clientele including at least a handful of organizations that its leadership dealt with while previously working in the premier’s office, government records show.
Some of these clients secured major commitments from the province — like a promised minister’s zoning order (MZO) and expanded alcohol sales — with help from Atlas Strategic Advisors, the firm run by Ford’s former longtime right-hand man Amin Massoudi.
These organizations’ successes recall frequent criticism Ford’s opponents have levelled at him over his political career: letting his personal loyalties dictate government decision-making, benefiting those closest to him.
Several senior government officials’ calendars, documentation of premier’s office meetings, and dozens of emails altogether show ways Atlas’ leaders intersected while in the premier’s office with at least five stakeholders that their lobbying firm later represented. In a pair of cases, Cody Mallette, who is now Atlas’ managing director, helped these stakeholders while working for Ford.
Massoudi and Mallette were close premier’s office colleagues before reuniting at Atlas. They maintain their firm has done no wrong, promising they’ve carefully followed lobbying and post-employment conflict-of-interest laws.
On his and Mallette’s behalf, Massoudi told The Trillium in a Jan. 17 email that Atlas is “continually working to follow the important rules governing lobbying activities” and follows the advice of the Office of the Integrity Commissioner.
“Meeting with a stakeholder who has a proposal or arranging high-level ‘general relationship’ meetings between an entity and another official do not equate to advising the government on a particular proceeding, negotiation, or transaction,” Massoudi added, referencing Ontario’s “no switching sides rule.”
As the integrity commissioner’s website explains, former public servants, including minister’s or premier’s office staff, mustn’t give advice or assistance on the same “proceeding, negotiation, or transaction” that they had while working within the government.
Ford’s office didn’t respond before this story’s publication to questions The Trillium asked it about dealings that Massoudi and Mallette had while working for it with stakeholders that Atlas has lobbied for since.
Restrictions around the “no switching sides” rule, cooling-off periods, lobbying one’s former government colleagues, conflicts of interest, and more are laid out under the Lobbyists Registration Act and other provincial laws.
Massoudi worked in the premier's office from shortly after Ford was first elected in June 2018 until August 2022. For most of this time, he was Ford's principal secretary, his most senior staffer responsible for managing stakeholders.
Mallette spent October 2020 to September 2021 as Massoudi's executive assistant and was then a senior policy adviser until at least October 2022. He registered Atlas' earliest lobbying clients in November 2022.
Emails referred to in this article are mostly between Mallette, from his time in the premier’s office, and other government officials, and representatives of organizations he went on to lobby for.
These emails, along with the other records, were obtained by The Trillium from a mixture of freedom-of-information requests and well-placed sources. This is what they show of the links the Atlas duo had made while working for Ford with five stakeholders before they became clients.
Beer and wine in corner stores
The Convenience Industry Council of Canada (CICC) is a prominent Atlas client that Mallette, as well as Massoudi, dealt with in the premier’s office.
Convenience stores the association represents are set to be big winners of the Ford government’s plans to allow the sale of beer and wine in corner stores.
Mallette and another Atlas lobbyist have been registered to lobby for the CICC toward this goal since June 2023.
Massoudi hasn’t registered to lobby the CICC, nor any of Atlas’ other clients. He’s the lone director listed on Atlas’ corporate records and the sole principal shown on its website, which describes him as “the cornerstone of the firm’s strategic insight and advisory services.”
In December, Ford announced convenience store sales will begin in 2026, fulfilling a long-delayed campaign promise from 2018.
Massoudi and Mallette each separately met with CICC in 2021, according to records and what they and the association’s president Anne Kothawala said.
A few weeks before the Ford government released its 2021 budget, Mallette and a premier’s office colleague met with a few CICC representatives, including Kothawala, emails indicate.
Although Kothawala told The Trillium she had "no recollection of Mr. Mallette’s participation" in this meeting, emails indicate he helped organize it and attended, with him writing to a lobbyist working for the CICC afterward that “it was our pleasure to meet with the three of you yesterday.”
Mallette, his premier’s office colleague and representatives of CICC discussed the prospect of expanding alcohol beverages sales in convenience stores at this March 8, 2021 meeting, a meeting agenda that Mallette compiled and emails he sent and received after the fact indicate.
After the March 8, 2021 meeting, a lobbyist for the CICC emailed Mallette about the upcoming mid-pandemic budget, asking “that with an economic recovery lens, the government can recommit to opening up additional product lines for convenience stores.”
“I will ensure that Amin is aware of the request/proposal presented by the group,” Mallette wrote in response.
Massoudi told The Trillium he had “one 30-minute courtesy meeting with (the CICC) as a stakeholder but took no further action related to that meeting or on behalf of the CICC” while he worked in the premier’s office.
Kothawala said the one “30 minute meeting” she recalled having with Massoudi while he worked in the premier’s office took place in November.
Emails a lobbyist working for the CICC and Mallette exchanged in November 2021 and an entry in Massoudi’s calendar on Nov. 29, 2021 indicate he and the lobbyist planned a call for that day. Massoudi, however, told The Trillium that neither he nor Mallette believed the call on this date took place.
“Based on advice that Cody and I sought and received from the Office of the Integrity Commissioner when we left government as well as our present understanding of the rules — I am confident that Atlas and its employees have properly followed Ontario’s lobbying rules and restrictions in any work involving the files you have mentioned,” Massoudi told The Trillium in his Jan. 17 email.
The hospital and the philanthropist
Emails show that in 2021 Mallette had discussions about a private health-care proposal by a charity directly connected to Colonial House Capital Limited, which also involved Unity Health, a publicly funded Toronto hospital network — both of which he’s since lobbied for.
For a roughly three-month period in late 2023, Unity Health hired Mallette as a lobbyist.
Unity Health was after an MZO to protect the flight path of emergency helicopters to St. Michael’s Hospital in downtown Toronto. The previous Liberal government issued MZOs to this effect from 2016 to 2018.
MZOs are more commonly — and controversially, in the case of the Ford government, which has issued upwards of 100, totalling more than all previous governments combined — issued by the housing minister to effectively fast-track development proposals.
Mallette was registered to lobby the ministers of health and housing, plus their ministries, to obtain the flight path-protecting MZO.
Global News reported that Unity Health wrote to the province’s then-housing minister in July asking for the MZO. July was also when Unity Health hired Atlas on “a limited retainer … to assist in navigating the approvals process,” a hospital network spokesperson said in an email.
The Ford government has promised to grant the MZO before reviewing how they’re given out.
It’s uncommon for public hospitals to hire lobbyists and they can only do so without using public funds.
“It’s a tragic statement on the way in which this government conducts itself that public institutions feel they need to go to measures that are usually reserved for private … corporations in order to achieve their goals for the public good,” said Liberal MPP Adil Shamji, an emergency room physician before politics.
Unity Health had been involved in 2021 with a wealthy philanthropist who pitched Ford on his major private health-care proposal, meeting notes and other records show.
On April 15, 2021, Ford had a call with Walter Schroeder, according to records and a business partner of Schroeder’s.
Schroeder heads up Colonial House Capital Limited and the philanthropic Schroeder Foundation. The call was so he could pitch the premier on a proposal he was making that involved Unity Health, records from it show.
Massoudi was also invited to the call and a pre-call briefing for Ford, along with several other officials from the premier’s and finance minister’s offices, not including Mallette, records show. Each item was logged in Massoudi’s calendar that day as well.
But Massoudi said he didn’t attend, saying the items appeared in his calendar because of how Microsoft Outlook’s interconnected software functions when someone is invited to a meeting as a “required attendee.” Michael McConnell, a business partner of Schroeder’s who said he took part in the call, also said Massoudi didn’t attend.
Massoudi added in a recent email to The Trillium that neither he nor Mallette “advised the Crown in connection with any proceeding, negotiation, or other transaction” involving Unity Health or Schroeder.
Notes taken during the April 15, 2021 call indicate Schroeder’s team pitched Ford and other officials on its concept for building a massive private surgical centre in Richmond Hill, referred to as the Terra Hill Hospital. Schroeder's plan was to eventually give Unity Health control of the facility, meeting notes and other records show.
Although Unity Health had been on board with Schroeder’s proposal in 2021, as records show, representatives of the hospital network didn’t take part in the April 15, 2021 call.
Unity Health’s spokesperson said its representatives “did not engage” with either Massoudi or Mallette while they worked in the premier’s office.
A couple of months later in June 2021, Schroeder founded another charity called the Terra Hill Ambulatory Surgical and Medical Centre to handle the construction of the Richmond Hill surgical centre.
Two months after that, in August 2021, emails show Mallette reached out to policy staff in the health minister’s office, looking to learn more about “an ongoing discussion with the Schroeder Foundation, Unity Health and a few others” about a surgical facility project.
Mallette and a health minister’s policy staffer talked about the project on Aug. 11, 2021, according to their emails. Mallette then emailed the same staffer the next day, along with a doctor from another Toronto hospital who also vice-chairs the Terra Hill charity, plus a lobbyist representing Schroeder’s company “to connect (them) directly” given the “complexity of the health capital proposal.”
McConnell also said neither Massoudi nor Mallette dealt directly with Schroeder while they worked in the premier’s office.
In April 2023, Mallette registered to lobby for Colonial House Capital Limited — Schroeder’s private equity investment firm, with the goal of advocating “for a new surgical ambulatory facility in Ontario” in connection with the Terra Hill charity.
Schroeder is building its Terra Hill surgical facility in the hopes of winning the government’s approval for its operation. Health Minister Sylvia Jones’ spokesperson said in March 2023 that her ministry had received its draft plans, which would be considered under the upcoming expansion of new private health-care facilities.
Unity Health is no longer a part of the plan; it “communicated its decision to the Schroeder Foundation that it is not pursuing participation in the Terra Hill project” in July 2023, the hospital network’s spokesperson told The Trillium in an email.
The tech biz
Arctiq and Dialogue Health were two of Atlas’ earliest lobbying clients once it got up and running in the fall of 2022.
A few weeks before registering to lobby for each of them, Mallette helped both Arctiq and Dialogue Health from within the premier’s office.
Emails Mallette exchanged with representatives of Arctiq, a Mississauga-based tech company, show them arranging a pair of meetings together in September and October 2022, the latter of which was attended by a policy staffer in the office of then-minister of public and business service delivery, Kaleed Rasheed.
After the second meeting, an Arctiq representative emailed Mallette and Rasheed’s staffer on Oct. 13, 2022, thanking them for meeting, and asking for help on four initiatives involving the government, including for Rasheed to visit the company’s office. Mallette responded that he'd "be happy to work with (Rasheed's staffer) on these items."
The then-minister did soon visit after, according to Rasheed’s and a staffer’s calendars, and a LinkedIn post.
Mallette registered to lobby for Arctiq on Nov. 16, 2022, just days after Rasheed’s visit to Arctiq’s office.
Meanwhile, a lobbyist working for Dialogue Health, a major telemedicine provider, and Mallette met late in September 2022, emails between them indicate. Afterwards, Mallette told the lobbyist he would raise the company’s concerns about “the continuity of virtual care” with a premier's office colleague specializing in health policy.
Mallette registered to lobby for Dialogue Health on Nov. 28, 2022, with goals of loosening restrictions on publicly paid telemedicine services and to “ensure its expansion to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of health care in Ontario.” He’s no longer registered to lobby for Dialogue.
A Titan of Ford Nation
Massoudi left the premier’s office in late August 2022, a couple of months before Mallette’s exit.
Atlas adopted its current name on Aug. 26, 2022, Massoudi’s last day in the premier’s office. His firm had been called Amin Massoudi Consulting Inc., which he last registered to lobby under before Ford rose to become premier.
Not long after Massoudi officially left Ford’s office, Atlas was contracted by PC Caucus Services to provide speech-writing and communications support to the party’s MPPs, he and the premier’s office have said.
Atlas’ contract with PC Caucus Services only came to light on Sept. 27, 2023 through the government’s release of its 2022-23 Public Accounts. It had ended by that time after lasting about a year, according to Ford’s office.
From sometime between late August 2022 until the end of March 2023, Atlas was paid $237,300 through the Office of the Legislative Assembly from this contract.
Mallette and two other Atlas lobbyists built up the firm’s clientele over this period as well, their registrations show.
Mallette registered Atlas’ first lobbying clients in November 2022.
“To my knowledge, it is not uncommon for caucus services departments at the Legislature to seek this type of external communications and speech writing support from subject matter experts,” Massoudi said in an email to The Trillium on Wednesday.
Massoudi and his firm had become closely watched political entities by the time details of its PC Caucus Services contract surfaced.
He was involved in the Las Vegas trip, which The Trillium first reported, that contributed to the collapse of the Ford government’s Greenbelt land removals plan.
The Trillium also reported that the integrity commissioner’s office was “looking into a matter involving (Atlas),” as Massoudi put it, in June 2023. It’s unclear whether the integrity commissioner has concluded this work, or if this constituted an official investigation, given the office is barred from disclosing most details about its lobbying oversight outside of its annual reports.
“At Atlas, we are continually working to follow the important rules governing lobbying activities,” Massoudi wrote in his email on his and Mallette’s behalf on Wednesday. “Our team holds regular compliance meetings, has a strict internal policy, and we maintain an open dialogue with the Office of the Integrity Commissioner to ensure that we properly follow its advice.”
Massoudi’s company isn’t the only lobbying firm to have drawn the attention of the integrity commissioner’s office under Ford’s premiership.
The integrity commissioner’s office said last July that it was “aware of information” about another former close aide of Ford’s “potential non-compliance with the Lobbyists Registration Act.”
Nor are Massoudi and Mallette the only lobbyists to attract media attention. The Globe and Mail reported in 2019 that the heads of two lobbying firms were concurrently advising Ford, including on cabinet appointments, and one PC Party riding association called it “alarming.”
The integrity commissioner’s and auditor general’s parallel Greenbelt reports also each highlighted concerns they had around lobbying activity. Mr. X quickly became infamous thanks to the integrity commissioner, who found he lobbied unregistered under a contract with $1 million in success fees, which aren’t permitted.
The Ford government promised during the Greenbelt scandal to start an overdue review of the Lobbyists Registration Act, but its start date is still unclear.
—With files from Jessica Smith Cross
