Creep Of The Week – Ontario College President Brian Tamblyn

By Doug Draper

Welcome to ‘Creep of the Week’ – a new series we are launching at Niagara At Large that spots a hot lights each week on at least one individual who has done something creepy enough to warrant public pillaring.

Ontario college president Brian Tamblyn

This week – as we suspect will be the case from here on in this depraved culture we live in – there were plenty of candidates to choose from, starting with Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the French politician and suddenly sidelined top honcho of the International Monetary Fund who allegedly sexually assaulted a female worker at a swanky Manhattan hotel before trying to make a hasty flight out of the country, and Donald Trump, the bloated Manhattan billionaire and star of the wretched reality show Celebrity Apprentice, who teased us right up to May 16 that he might run for president against a Barack Obama he accused of being less than forthcoming about his place of birth and of possibly wangling his way into and through Harvard University’ law school with lousy grades.

But being more of a regional news and commentary site, we at Niagara At Large have decided  to place our first Creep of the Week crown on someone a little closer to home – a Mr. Brian Tamblyn, president of Georgian College with campuses in the Orillia-Barrie, Ontario area. Tamblyn, according to information released this May 17 in the Ontario legislature and reported by CBC and other media, went to a $5,000-per-plate provincial Liberal fundraising dinner in 2008 and put the tab on his expenses, meaning that the taxpayers of Ontario who help pay for our colleges and the students who pay a sizable chunk through their tuition, picked up the tab for his decision to go glad-handing at a partisan political event.

It wasn’t until the Ontario NDP was tipped off to the possibility that Tamblyn had looted the public purse to cover the cost of his attendance at a political fundraiser and filed a freedom of information request for documents to comfirm it that Tamblyn finally did the ‘honorable thing’ and paid back the money out of his own pocket.

“There’s something wrong when our public institutions think the only way to be heard is handing money to the governing party,” said NDP leader Andrea Horwath in the legislature this May 17. “Students and families shouldn’t have to foot the bill for a voice at the table.”

That may be so but Tamblyn, who enjoys a yearly salary of $277,000 plus perks, according to the province’s annual ‘sunshine list’ on public servant salaries.  didn’t have to make the public, including his students who pay around  $5,000 a year in tuition fees, pay for the cost of his attendance at the political fundraiser either.

As Premier Dalton McGuinty put it this May 17 when Horwath asked him about this in the provincial legislature; “Maybe we can use this as an opportunity to remind all of those who have the privilege of working in our broader public sector that should they wish to attend a political fundraiser, they’re obviously entitled to do so … but if they want to do so, they should be paying it out of their own pockets.”

Shame on this guy.  He should resign his post as a college president if this is is any indication of how little respect he has for the public’s money, including that of the students.  He deserves to be crowned our creep of the week.

If you, our readers, wish to nominate someone for ‘Creep of the Week’, email your submissions to drapers@vaxxine.com. And if you know of anyone in public life in Niagara that has gone to a political-fundraiser and charged the expenses to our tab, we will be happy to accept that kind of information, off the record, as a tip we will investigate. Please note that you must also email us enough information – information that can be confirmed,  that the individual you are naming qualifies as a bonafide creep.

(Please share your comments on this issue below and visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to resident in our greater Niagara region and beyond.)