'It's a joke': Integrity commissioner system under fire after Richmond Hill drama

ANALYSIS: Are we better off with integrity commissioners? Western University professor Andrew Sancton says 'it's not clear'

Yorkregion.com
December 18, 2019
Simon Martin

When the provincial government made code of conducts and integrity commissioners mandatory for municipalities in 2018, did it envision what has happened in Richmond Hill this year?

Coun. Karen Cilevitz was docked an astounding 315 days' pay in a little more than a year after a dizzying number of integrity commissioner complaints. The problem is Richmond Hill’s integrity commissioner didn't recommend Cilevitz's wages be garnished in several instances and Richmond Hill council charged ahead anyway with the maximum allowable fine.

Richmond Hill council decided Oct. 16 to suspend Cilevitz’s pay for 180 days -- 90 days for each offence -- for failing to notify her fellow councillors about two residents' meetings she organized in the spring.

Richmond Hill Mayor Dave Barrow doesn’t see why there are concerns about council's decision to impose a different penalty than the one recommended by the integrity commissioner.

“The majority of council approves everything. That’s how it works,” he said. “I voted the way I thought. Quite frankly it is public knowledge.”

Barrow voted in favour of suspending Cilevtiz’s pay.

The happenings in Richmond Hill have caused some experts to raise concerns about how integrity commissioners are being used.

“I have been struck by the number of cases where the system has not quite worked out the way people originally intended,” Andrew Sancton, a Western University political science professor, said. “It’s not clear to me that we are better off with integrity commissioners.”

One of the foremost experts in Ontario municipal governance, Sancton said the majority of complaints to integrity commissioners are political grievances between councillors.

The integrity commissioner system was designed to offer some solutions for members of council who weren't behaving properly, but you wind up having a new set of problems, Sancton said.

The system wasn't designed to give integrity commissioners a lot of power as it wasn't seen as appropriate to give one person a great deal of authority over elected officials, Sancton said.

“They did not want to give them the same protection as judges,” Sancton said. “The downside is these integrity commissioners don’t have much security. If they are really dependent on these jobs for income they are in a tenuous position.”

What’s happened is several high-profile lawyers, such as Guy Giorno and John Mascarin, now serve as integrity commissioner for several different municipalities. So there's a strong financial incentive for integrity commissioners to get reappointed, Sancton said.

In Richmond Hill, council not only imposed a sanction not recommended by the integrity commissioner but then got rid of her.

 “We initiated a process to appoint a new one. A majority of council felt there was a need,” Barrow said.

Deborah Anschell from ADR Chambers was relieved of her duties. Allan Stitt from ADR Chambers said their contract was terminated but refused to comment on the matter.

For Richard Lorello, the integrity commissioner proved useful in bringing forward a complaint against longtime Vaughan councillor  Michael DiBiase, a former mayor and deputy mayor.

“Without it that’s very difficult to get some attention on some of these accountability issues,” Lorello said.

Earlier this year, the OPP announced DiBiase is facing criminal municipal corruption charges. The OPP was asked to investigate the scandal-plagued former mayor by York Regional Police in April 2015.

The investigation was triggered by a referral from the city’s integrity commissioner, Suzanne Craig, and a complaint from Lorello, a local activist who ran against DiBiase multiple times, involving allegations of corruption by DiBiase, who was a local and regional councillor at the time.

Following an investigation by the OPP’s anti-rackets branch, DiBiase was charged with breach of trust and municipal corruption.

Lorello said that wouldn't have been possible without the integrity commissioner position.

That said, the position has notable flaws, according to Lorello.

One weakness is that if council doesn’t like the integrity commissioner recommendations, it can easily dismiss it, Lorello said.

More problematic is if council doesn't like what the integrity commissioner uncovers the integrity commissioner can be let go.

“It’s like President Trump dismissing the special council,” he said.

While the integrity commissioner functioned as intended in Vaughan, Lorello said it's a different story in Richmond Hill.

“It is a joke. Anybody can read through that,” Lorello said. “I think they are using the integrity commissioner and complaint to exact retribution very harshly."

While the system has obvious flaws, Sancton said there aren't obvious or easy solutions.

But Barrow summed it up very simply.

“It’s a process that is required and we are following the process,” he said. “The majority of council decides how we want to proceed.”