10 Years Ago She Helped Expose A Scandal In Halifax, Now She’s The City’s New CAO
HALIFAX — The Halifax Regional Municipality has named Cathie O’Toole its next chief administrative officer.
The chartered accountant has held several leadership positions over her more than decade-long tenure with the city. She also played a part exposing the so-called “concert scandal” that rocked the city in 2011 and lead to the resignation of CAO Wayne Anstey.
O’Toole will replace Jacques Dube, who announced in May he would leave the job by the end of the year. Dube had been the city’s CAO since 2016.
O’Toole holds a Master of Business Administration from Laurentian University and a Bachelor of Arts from Dalhousie University. She also has a long history with the Halifax Regional Municipality.
She worked for more than a decade at the municipally owned utility Halifax Water. She put in about eight years as the utility’s director of corporate services and chief financial officer before moving up to general manager in 2019.
Before her tenure at Halifax Water, O’Toole was the director of finance and CFO for the HRM. While in that position, she helped bring to light the city’s concert scandal.
From the late 2000s to early 2010s, then-mayor Peter Kelly and CAO Wayne Anstey gave millions of dollars in loans to Power Promotional Events to help the firm put on several big-name concerts.
By 2011, as many of the promised concerts were failing to materialize, PPE was on the hook for about $400,000 of loans that Anstey and Kelley authorized under suspect circumstances, without going through O’Toole, who was the city’s CFO at the time.
When O’Toole learned about the scheme, she brought it into the open, eventually leading Anstey to step down from his position. Shortly after, she took a job with Halifax Water.
In a news release announcing O’Toole’s new position with the city, Mayor Mike Savage said O’Toole has demonstrated “inspiring” and “collaborative” leadership during her time with the city.
“Her dedication to public service, as well as a proven track record of effective financial and operational management and delivering results, will be invaluable to our amazing staff as we continue to embrace the many opportunities and challenges of our fast-growing municipality,” Savage said.
In the same statement, O’Toole said it’s a “true privilege to work with the extraordinary team of dedicated professionals at the municipality.”
As CAO, O’Toole will oversee a Municipal budget of over $1 billion and a team of around 5,000 employees.
She will start her new job on January 1, 2023 and her first day in office will be on January 3.
Trevor Nichols is Huddle’s editor, based in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].