East Gwillimbury council ready to add layer of political accountability

Town must hire integrity commissioner, implement code of conduct by March 2019

Yorkregion.com
September 26, 2018
Simon Martin

Members of East Gwillimbury council are receptive to adopting a code of conduct and installing an integrity commissioner to add a layer of accountability to the town.

Modernizing Ontario’s Municipal Legislation Act, also known as Bill 68, was passed by the previous Liberal government in 2017, and requires all municipalities establish codes of conduct for municipal council members and certain local boards by March 1, 2019 as well as give the public and councillors access to the services of an integrity commissioner.

While Mayor Virginia Hackson said she doesn’t think an integrity commissioner would have been needed over the last two terms of council, she understands the benefits the change could provide.

“Most councils need someone to help them out along the way. It's been mandated and we’ll embrace it,” she said.

Coun. Tara Roy-DiClemente said the challenge for council is what happens when one member goes rogue and other members have to sanction that person. The integrity commissioner and the code of conduct bring clarity to that process.

Roy-DiClemente said there are surprisingly few tools currently available to hold members of council accountable.

“They have to show up to one meeting every three months. What other performance measures are in place?” she said.

Back when Coun. James Young was mayor in 2007, he was the subject of an independent inquiry for a tree-cutting incident at the Sharon Temple. Young certainly believes a system with an integrity commissioner and code of conduct is preferable to that process.

“If someone questions something and wants something investigated it should be done by someone independent,” he said. “If you follow the act there shouldn’t be any issue.”

Young said it is of the utmost importance that the integrity commissioner remains an independent neutral arbiter and brings findings straight to council.

His problem with the independent inquiry that he was subjected to was he felt the town’s administration was involved in it. The integrity commissioner process should be at arms length from the town’s bureaucracy, he said.

It is left up to municipalities to decide whether or not to appoint their own full-time integrity commissioner, share the service with other municipalities, or retain one on a fee-for-use basis.

Hackson said there is some discussion in the northern six municipalities about sharing an integrity commissioner. The cost of an integrity commissioner varies upon how many investigations they are required to do.

For instance in Whitchurch-Stouffville the integrity commissioner retainer is $1,000. Yet the town has spent a little more than $200,000 in integrity commissioner investigation since it adopted a code of conduct in February of 2017.

During Bill 68’s third reading in the legislature, the then Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Bill Mauro said changes to the act would do a number of things to strengthen Ontario communities right across the province.

“They would improve access to justice for both the public and municipal councillors by allowing integrity commissioners to investigate conflict-of-interest issues if a complaint was brought to them,” he said to the Speaker of the House. “They ensure municipalities have a code of conduct for members of municipal councils and certain local boards.”

York University Professor Dennis Pilon doubts forcing all of Ontario’s 444 municipalities to have an integrity commissioner and council code of conduct will have the desired effect policy-makers envisioned.

“These kinds of approaches don’t always work,” he said. “Often there is an underlying political problem that is at the root of the (conduct) issue. There has to be a political will for these (systemic) changes to work.”

The most prominent issue is council members have final say on what goes into the code of conduct and any recommendations made by the integrity commissioner, he added.

For example, if there isn’t a consensus on a point some councillors believe should be in the code of conduct, it won’t be included and the code of conduct can be changed upon council’s desire.

“There was an integrity commissioner in British Columbia who was too good at his job and was digging up all kinds of information and the council pulled funding for his office,” Pilon said. “It’s not an ideal model.”

The powers of the integrity commissioner are still being ironed out in court.

An Ontario judge recently ruled that Whitchurch-Stouffville didn’t have the power to ban its mayor, Justin Altmann, from the town office and talking to town staff, which were recommendations put forth by the integrity commissioner.

Justice Phillip Sutherland wrote in his decision “there is nothing in the Act or the Code that authorizes the Council to impose the sanctions.”

Penalties available to municipalities through the municipal act are a reprimand and docking up to 90 days pay. A code of conduct can outline remedial measures.

With more integrity commissioners coming, Osgoode Hall Law School Associate Dean Trevor Farrow said court rulings like the one in Altmann vs. the Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville will provide greater clarity on what penalties council can and cannot levy in the future.