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Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has been accused of breaking election-finance laws.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail

Toronto council's compliance audit committee has decided to delay for a week a hearing into whether there should be an external audit of Mayor Rob Ford's election finances. The move will allow the three-person committee to assess all three applications for an external audit review concurrently.

The new meeting is set for next Friday, May 13.

Three requests have been filed with the city clerk's office to date, two based on a Globe and Mail investigation into the mayor's unorthodox approach to financing his campaign using advances from a Ford family-controlled holding company that owns Deco Labels and Tags. The third, submitted this week, is a far more detailed 17-page submission that also alleges that Mr. Ford exceeded the statutory $1.3-million spending limit for mayoral candidates.

At issue in all three is whether Mr. Ford's campaign team followed provincial and City of Toronto rules governing election financing and corporate contributions.

The decision to defer came after Mr. Ford's personal lawyer Thomas Barlow proposed that the first two applications, by Ted Ho and Fred Berenbaum, be dismissed because they cite only a newspaper article, which, he told the committee, "is not an appropriate basis for a complaint."

The three-person committee opted instead to consider all three requests at the same meeting, but individually.

Mr. Ho, a retired teacher, welcomed the deferral, saying it would give him more time to research the issues at stake and peruse the mayor's election filings.

Mr. Barlow said the mayor considers the allegations to be without basis, and said his client would file a "full response" by next Wednesday. Asked if Mr. Ford will submit further documents to demonstrate that the campaign followed the rules, Mr. Barlow replied, "I don't know there are any other documents that are necessary."

Any eligible voter can apply for a compliance audit. But the rules governing the process allow council to force applicants to repay the cost of the investigation if it comes up empty. Mr. Berenbaum, a provincial civil servant, said he was aware of the potential downside before he filed the request, but feels the policy is meant to discourage frivolous requests. "This is the only time I've ever done this. I guess if they charge me, they charge me and I'll have to figure out how to deal with that."

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