A 10-year court battle with the Attorney General that started when an Orillia woman’s rental properties were seized under the Civil Remedies Act has finally come to a close, with a recent settlement that will see her compensated for the rooming houses.
Maggie Reilly was the owner and landlord for the two rooming houses at 42 Nottawasaga St. and 60 Front St. in Orillia, which were seized in 2008 by the Attorney General (AG) who claims they were “instruments of crime” and that she and her husband Terry Reilly were profiting from drug-dealer tenants.
The two properties were sold by the AG in 2017, but Reilly has had to fight to see any of the money.
“To be frank with you, it would have been much less expensive for me to walk away from the two buildings in the very beginning,” says Reilly.
“For an average citizen like myself to take on a whole team of Ontario government lawyers sounds like insanity, but I felt it was such a severe abuse of power and abuse of civil rights of a citizen that my conscience just wouldn’t allow me to not fight it,” she said.
“I can’t let this happen to another innocent person. I just can’t.”
Back in the mid-2000s, Reilly and her then-husband Terry had owned property in Orillia for many years prior to making the decision to purchase the two properties to convert them into affordable housing.
“We had been rather successful in our business life and we wanted to give something back to our community,” says Reilly. “We felt that the homeless situation in Orillia had escalated – as it has in many other parts of the province. We felt that was something we were able to contribute to and do something about.”
The couple decided to designate their two buildings for people who were homeless, dealing with mental illness or who were living on the fringes of society.
Reilly reminisces that her father had been an Anglican priest in Orillia for many years. He instilled in Reilly from a young age that to be human is to extend yourself wherever and whenever possible to help others.
“It was just a way of life for me,” she says.
While Reilly acknowledges that she did have problem tenants from time to time, she contends there were very few people over the years that she knew had serious drug issues.
During the time she owned the building on Nottawasaga Street, Reilly says there was only one drug arrest.
She recalls one tenant dealing drugs in the building on Front Street as well, but says when she went to the police at the time for help to try to get him evicted or arrested, she says she was told there was nothing they could do.
“We tried to get him out through eviction and were unsuccessful because we had no evidence,” she says. “The court system, for landlords, is extremely difficult in terms of eviction because you have to have evidence. You can’t just make an accusation.”
“It’s very, very difficult with the way the system is set up.”
In September 2008, Reilly’s life changed forever.
“We owned those buildings for many, many years and we had no idea that there were any concerns in terms of those properties. There had never been a single communication from a police officer saying that they had concerns, or wanting to discuss anything with us,” says Reilly.
The day of the seizure in September 2008, an OPP team raided the two buildings, forcing existing tenants out onto the street.
“It was a complete shock,” she says. “The terror for these people to have the OPP come in like that with their guns drawn and threw them all out of their homes, literally onto the street. They had nowhere to go. It was terrible.”
Reilly says that on the day of the seizure there were no arrests made and no drugs found, aside from four marijuana plants.
On the day of the raid, Reilly was served with a notice of the property seizure by two OPP detectives in her driveway. She says the officers informed her that day that the properties were being seized because they were considered proceeds of crime due to her being paid cash rent by the tenants.
“At the time I said, ‘What cash?’” says Reilly, adding that most of the tenants had their rent paid for them by the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) or some other form of government assistance.
Reilly says that after the seizure happened more details were released to her, including that the investigation into the properties had been going on for over two years.
Reilly is adamant that no one from any police force contacted her during those investigations.
“Not a single time did they ever express any concerns whatsoever,” she says.
After the properties were seized and the court battle started with Reilly trying to retain ownership of her two buildings, the Ontario government was responsible to keep the properties maintained.
“They never did that,” says Reilly. “Both buildings just became flop houses for the community. By the time the government took over, they did become crack houses. The building was completely destroyed.”
Reilly says she hired a private investigator to photograph the conditions, who found that there were drug needles all over the lawn and in the homes while they were under the purview of the Orillia OPP and the Attorney General.
“Neighbours were complaining to me about it,” she says. “(At that point) they finally boarded it up at 42 Nottawasaga Street.”
The Civil Remedies Act legislation, approved by the government in 2002, was intended to deter organized criminals from buying properties with the proceeds of crime.
“It wasn’t designed for something like this,” says Reilly. “I feel deep gratitude to my lawyer, Shawna Fattal. If it hadn’t been for her, I’m not sure I could have gone on.”
While Fattal says she primarily practises criminal law, she says she felt compelled to take on this case after seeing what the Attorney General had done to the Reillys.
“Unfortunately (and I believe many would agree), the way (the Attorney General) has been using the CRA legislation has expanded so far beyond their original objective, now often targeting innocent persons who have never been suspected of any wrongdoing,” says Fattal.
Pointing out that neither of the Reillys have a criminal record nor were they charged with anything as a result of these proceedings, Fattal says she finds it disturbing that there is a very small standard of proof when it comes to seizures under the act.
“It seems only fair that if our provincial government is permitted to do something as serious as taking away someone’s home, motor vehicle, or even their multi-unit income property where there is no allegation of wrongdoing, then they should have the benefit of a trial where the standard of proof required is the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” she says.
“The Reillys' experience serves as a clear warning that we all need to be increasingly concerned about (the Ontario government's) increasingly suspect seizures of property they allege to be a proceed and/or an instrument of crime.”
While Reilly can’t disclose the exact amount she was given by the Attorney General as a condition of the settlement, she says she was given fair market value for the two properties, as well as enough to cover some other expenses.
“When you go through a court battle with the Ontario government, the cost is almost prohibitive,” says Reilly. “It’s incredibly expensive. Unfortunately, it took almost everything we had. You never fully recover... financially, emotionally, even physically.”
Reilly says the stress of the fight was too much for her marriage, and she and Terry have since divorced.
“There are a lot of consequences to something like this.”
Reilly’s confidence in the police and government has also been shaken by the experience.
“I think, as a community in Ontario and the country, we need to take a good hard look at the police departments and the government,” says Reilly. “There seems to be no moral compass there. That’s deeply concerning to me, as a Canadian citizen.”
Looking forward, Reilly says she wouldn’t be interested in running properties again in the future.
“I don’t think I’d want to be a landlord anymore today, to be honest,” she says. “It’s so high risk. A landlord has no real way of knowing what a tenant is doing in the privacy of their own space.”
While the experience has soured Reilly on ever being a landlord again, there’s one part of her personality that will not be repressed by the experience, and that’s her willingness to help others.
“I’ve lived my whole life by one simple philosophy: the people who are the hardest to love are the ones who need it the most,” says Reilly. “People who live in isolation, mental illness and addiction need the love more than anyone.”
