Regina Exhibition Association CEO admits conflict of interest but says it's being handled by the book

Tim Reid, the president and CEO of the Regina Exhibition Association Ltd. (REAL), admits his private consulting firm is putting him in a conflict of interest.

But he says he has disclosed the conflict to the REAL board. The chair of that board, Wayne Morsky, says the issue is being handled by the book.

"We believe we have managed any potential conflicts of interest in compliance with our internal policies and to the standards expected by the public," he wrote to CBC.

In addition to running REAL, a publicly funded organization that manages Regina's exhibition properties, Reid runs Orange Crow Leadership (OCL), a private consulting firm that advises municipalities on how to efficiently run their recreational properties.

One of Reid's private corporate customers, TBD Architecture + Urban Planning, is also the architect of record for REAL. TBD is assisting REAL as it develops plans for a series of potential new facilities in Regina, including an arena, a baseball stadium and an aquatic centre.

Reid confirmed with CBC that he has known one of the two principals of TBD, Brian Bengert, for 10 to 15 years. He said their families have spent time together and the two men have attended sporting events with one another.

"I would say it's a great professional relationship. Do I consider him a great acquaintance?" Reid asked. "For sure." 

"The optics are not fantastic," said Tim Rowley, a professor of strategic management and organizations at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Business.

Rowley told CBC that the complex series of relationships surrounding Reid would make the situation "extremely messy and really difficult to oversee" for the REAL board.

A busy CEO

Reid's private business came up earlier this year in the wake of a fiasco surrounding the rebranding of Tourism Regina.

Under Reid's watch REAL, which is also responsible for tourism, launched a campaign that poked fun at the fact that Regina rhymes with vagina. That campaign, which has since been cancelled, earned international criticism and scorn. 

REAL commissioned an investigation of how the campaign came to be. The final report, written by Alberta consultant George Cuff, said one of the contributing factors was that Reid was perhaps too busy to pay attention to all of the details.

"One of the outstanding issues impacting the evolution of the 'Incident' was the degree of busyness of REAL's CEO and the demands that were being placed on his time," wrote Cuff.

The report also drew attention to the fact that Reid was running his own private business on the side with authorization from the board, "providing that such engagements were not in conflict with his new role at REAL."

CBC took a deeper look at Reid's business, OCL, and how it interacted with his public role as the head of REAL.

'[OCL] doesn't do a ton of work:' Reid

Reid incorporated OCL in January 2018, just 16 days before he was announced as REAL's new president and CEO. 

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He said that in negotiations with REAL, he "asked for a clause that allowed me to keep OCL.… My private business was established before I took the job here in REAL."

According to the Cuff report, the board agreed to Reid's request so that he would be able to make more money than REAL could pay him on its own.

"The limiting nature of the Board's compensation was overcome through the Board granting [Reid] the authority to continue to oversee his own consulting business," wrote Cuff.

In 2019, his first full calendar year as a city employee, Reid made $288,467 for his role as REAL CEO, which made him the second highest paid City of Regina employee.

Reid said that since inception, OCL has done 42 projects, which works out to approximately eight per year. 

"OCL doesn't do a ton of work," he said,  adding "I do my OCL work outside of work hours. I take vacation if I'm going to do a project."

Reid said it's not his OCL work that made him excessively busy, it's that additional responsibilities like running Tourism Regina increased his workload.

Private projects overlap rebranding campaign timeline

The Regina tourism rebrand project took place between July 2022 and March 2023. Five of the six projects Reid's company OCL did with TBD overlap that period of time.

Here are the six TBD projects Reid disclosed to CBC:

• November 2021 to July 2023 - Alberta Multipurpose Recreation Facility Study.

• January 2022 to present - Lloydminster Arena Project.

• March 2022 to June 2022 - Devon Arena Project.

• July 2022 - Alberta Outdoor Field Facility.

• August 2022 to October 2022 - Alberta Aquatic Study.

• January 2023 to April 2023 - Alberta Twin Arena Study.

In the interview, Reid suggested that he scaled back his OCL work during the rebrand period, so it didn't affect his job performance.

In a follow up email, Reid told CBC that he did one additional project with Brian Bengert or one of his companies in addition to these six. However, when asked, he declined to provide any additional details.

A long-term relationship

Prior to starting at REAL in 2018, Reid managed recreational facilities for municipalities in Alberta for 12 years. He said he met Bengert in 2010 when he was overseeing a municipal project that Bengert's architectural firm was working on.

It was the start of a long collaborative relationship."The vast majority of the work I've done with [Bengert and his companies] is projects on behalf of municipal organizations, and over a number of years you gain a relationship," said Reid.

Even after Reid moved into his role at REAL in March 2018, that relationship with Bengert continued.

According to REAL's board chair, Wayne Morsky, Bengert "led the work of the futures committee and site condition assessment" as Stantec's representative. That work, involving preliminary planning for the future of REAL's properties, began in 2018 and continued into 2019.

In March 2020, REAL established the Arena Planning Strategy Committee (APSC), made up of Regina "stakeholders" and co-chaired by Reid, to consider what to do with the aging Brandt Centre where the Regina Pats play.

That committee began looking for an architect to help with the work. 

That same month, March 2020, Bengert left Stantec and began his new company --- TBD Architecture + Design and the committee chose TBD to do the work. 

According to Reid, the committee didn't tender the work because it was a small job, below the threshold that would require a request for proposal (RFP). Reid said finance staff asked Stantec, Bengert's old company, and TBD, his new firm, for quotes and decided TBD's was the best.

Reid said he was co-chairing the meeting when the committee officially selected TBD. He said he didn't recuse himself from the decision because "the work that was being done was very, very small project-based work."

In April 2021, after the TBD work was done, REAL put out an RFP looking for a long-term architect of record. 

Reid said he recused himself from that process "because of the history that I've had with TBD … I've removed myself from it."

TBD was selected. As of the end of 2022, the City of Regina has paid TBD $550,000, according to city records.

'Fully compliant' with conflict of interest rules

Reid acknowledged that his private business relationship with TBD puts him in a conflict of interest, but said he has always been transparent with the REAL board about it.

He said there are a relatively small number of people working in the field of sports, entertainment and recreation facilities in Western Canada, so "there will always be risk [of conflict of interest] in this industry."

"Over a number of years you gain a [professional] relationship," he said. "And I have it with many in our industry."

In an email, REAL board chair Wayne Morsky agreed that Reid has followed the rules.

"In terms of TBD Architecture, Mr. Reid did disclose his conflict of interest with the organization to the Vice President of Finance and Administration, the Vice President of Commercial Development and the former Board Chair," Morsky wrote to CBC. "Mr. Reid remains fully compliant with REAL's conflict of interest policy."

In the course of its research, CBC discovered that at least one board member was not aware of this conflict of interest. 

In an email, CBC asked Niki Anderson, Regina's city manager and an ex-officio REAL board member since November 2022, when she became aware of Reid's private business relationship with TBD.

"This is an extremely leading question," she replied. "The City Manager has no knowledge of any relationship between Tim Reid and TBD."

When CBC asked what was "leading" about its question, she replied, "the concern is that the question states false information as fact."

When CBC pointed out that the information was factual she suggested CBC address additional questions to the REAL board chair.

'Very difficult, almost impossible task'

University of Toronto professor Tim Rowley said that while he has no reason to doubt that the board is managing this conflict, it has taken on a "very difficult to almost impossible task."

He said the fact that TBD, a key REAL vendor, is in an ongoing private business relationship with REAL's president and CEO is a big concern.

"The reason I say that is money is flowing between Reid's private company and TBD, and that's the thing that makes the TBD/REAL contract very difficult to oversee, because we don't know what biases are involved," said Rowley.

Rowley said that while he is not questioning Reid's motives or actions, conflict of interest policies exist because human nature dictates that sometimes people act in their own interest rather than the interest of their employer.

"I don't know how a board would be able to, with confidence, manage that conflict," said Rowley. "That would be a very difficult conflict to manage with the taxpayers' best interest in mind. I'm not saying they couldn't do it. I think that's a very complex situation."

He said that when faced with conflicts of interest like this boards have a choice — they can attempt to mitigate the conflict or take steps to get rid of it altogether.

"If I'm on the board, the discussion I would be having is this: this conflict of interest is not one that we can just mitigate," he said.