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The committee met at 1002 in Delta Hotels by Marriott, Thunder Bay.
Legislative Assembly of Ontario · Committee
Thursday, July 31, 2025
Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy
The official transcript of the meeting, from Hansard, by heading. Ministers, officials and witnesses appear as the transcript names them; committees have no live transcript, so the record appears once the Assembly publishes it.
Municipal Accountability Act, 2025 / Loi de 2025 sur la responsabilité au niveau municipal
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Consideration of the following bill:
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Bill 9, An Act to amend the City of Toronto Act, 2006 and the Municipal Act, 2001 in relation to codes of conduct / Projet de loi 9, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2006 sur la cité de Toronto et la Loi de 2001 sur les municipalités en ce qui concerne les codes de déontologie.
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The First Vice-Chair (Mr. Guy Bourgouin)
Good morning. Bon matin, tout le monde. I call this meeting of the Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy to order. We are meeting here in beautiful Thunder Bay. Nous sommes à Thunder Bay pour la rencontre—Thunder Bay, Ontario—to begin public hearings on Bill 9, An Act to amend the City of Toronto Act, 2006 and the Municipal Act, 2001 in relation to codes of conduct. The Clerk of the Committee has distributed today’s meeting documents with you virtually, via SharePoint. To ensure that everyone who speaks is heard and understood, it is important that all participants speak slowly and clearly. Please wait until I recognize you before starting to speak. As always, all comments should go through the Chair. Are there any questions before we begin?
Mr. Chris Leahy
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The First Vice-Chair (Mr. Guy Bourgouin)
Seeing none, I will now call on Chris Leahy. He’s not here—he’s virtual. He’s on audio. As a reminder, each presenter will have seven minutes for their presentation. After we have heard from all the presenters, the remaining 39 minutes of the time slot will be for questions from members of the committee. This time for questions will be divided into two rounds of six and a half minutes for the government members, two rounds of six and a half minutes for the official opposition members and two rounds of six and a half minutes for the third party. Welcome. Please state your name for Hansard and you may begin. Chris, you can start speaking. Interjection.
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The First Vice-Chair (Mr. Guy Bourgouin)
You might be muted because we can’t hear you.
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The First Vice-Chair (Mr. Guy Bourgouin)
Keep speaking so we can try to adjust the sound. We can’t hear you very well.
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Mr. Chris Leahy
All right. My name is Chris Leahy. I’m a regional councillor in Whitby, Ontario. Thank you to committee members from all sides of the Legislature for allowing me the opportunity to speak to you and offer my thoughts and suggestions on Bill 9— Failure of sound system.
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The First Vice-Chair (Mr. Guy Bourgouin)
Keep speaking, so we can see if it’s still breaking up, because right now you’re breaking up as you speak.
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Mr. Chris Leahy
All right. I’ll try again. As you may know, there are 2,860 municipal elected officials in Ontario currently, according to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, and that does not include elected school trustees. Over the past few years, there have been several widely reported and serious incidents involving municipal councillors in places like Ottawa, Brampton and even in the nearby municipality of Pickering. Each of these reported incidents were very different and with different results. In the case of Ottawa, the councillor did not run for re-election and had to forgo over a year-and-a-half’s pay. That’s a pretty hefty fine. In the case of Brampton, the councillor was defeated by a close 300 votes, and prior to that had to forgo 90 days’ pay. The Pickering situation is still playing out; the end result is uncertain, but that councillor has been ostensibly docked a year’s pay. Given that none of these cases have ever gone to criminal trial or had the evidence tested in the same way one would in a criminal, or even civil, case should give us all pause. In my opinion, the victims did not get justice, the councillors did pay financial fines in the form of withheld paycheques. Importantly, the taxpayers did not necessarily get the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We need to protect employees and members of the public from predatory politicians and those that would undermine the institutions of democracy that we’ve value so dearly. Back in 2021, I called on the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to make changes to the Municipal Act in order to remove elected officials from the code-of-conduct investigation process. There is no other court in the country where the victim, the witness and the subject of an investigation and all of their co-workers get to decide on the penalty for someone found guilty. I was, at the time, the subject of a code-of-conduct investigation in the town of Whitby. When I communicated with the Whitby integrity commissioner about my concerns around conflicts of interest, he assured me that all members of council were legally allowed to vote, even if they were witnesses, complainants or subjects of the investigation. Provincial legislation allows for this to happen. Most residents wonder why politicians are the only professionals to have this type of privilege. If a nurse had a complaint filed against him or her at the Ontario College of Nurses, they wouldn’t get a vote on their own punishment. It wouldn’t be allowed for teachers, lawyers or engineers. Local taxpayers have witnessed political interference in investigations in the past. In 2020, the Durham District School Board fired their integrity commissioner because she asked them to stop interfering with their investigation. Then trustees reprimanded the one trustee who blew the whistle on their bad behaviour. It was the very worst example of political interference. I know the Education Act dictates the code-of-conduct regulations for school boards, but they suffer the same inherent conflicts of interest. I wrote to then-Minister Steve Clark about my concern and offered possible solutions, which could include establishing an arm’s-length provincial body. All municipal taxpayers would save money and have a fair, unbiased system. Section 223.2 of the Municipal Act requires municipalities to create codes of conduct and establish a process for investigating code violations to an appointed integrity commissioner. Bill 9 would be strengthened if it removed the politics from the process. I have to make a personal confession: I was financially sanctioned by the integrity commissioner for daring to say that my colleagues treated one of our colleagues differently than those who were not of an Asian background. I had 60 hours of video evidence. It was the truth. Principles Integrity said in their report that the truth was not a defence, so I received a financial fine. The town of Whitby did not investigate discriminatory behaviour. Instead, the mayor of Whitby launched a complaint against the victim of the discrimination and the witness who raised it. This is how Bill 9 would play out in Whitby. This is how Bill 9 can play out in any one of the municipalities in Ontario if we are not careful. The bill should differentiate between an alleged sexual assault by a councillor in an Istanbul hotel on a city trade mission and a councillor who rises on a point of privilege to state a fact with proven video evidence. There is inherent conflict in the design with the strong-mayor powers: the ability to select the budget and to select the CAO, who selects who the integrity commissioner is. Whoever pays the piper calls the tune. There are inherent issues that we have within the current regime, and we need to take the politics out of it if we’re truly going to have an independent review and make sure that justice is served at all times, whenever there’s a complaint, no matter who it’s from. Thank you.
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The First Vice-Chair (Mr. Guy Bourgouin)
Thank you, Mr. Leahy. This round of questioning—oh, not right away.
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The First Vice-Chair (Mr. Guy Bourgouin)
And we can start with the questioning? Okay. So this round of questioning will start with the government, then the official opposition and then the third party. MPP—
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Mr. Brian Saunderson
Thanks very much, Chair. I want to thank Chris for taking time this morning to join us and for your presentation. Chris, I’m wondering if you could, through the Clerk, arrange to send your script to us—if you have a script, or your notes—because some of the presentation was difficult to hear. So hopefully you can do that; work it out with the Clerk to send your script so we have the benefit of the full submission. I appreciate your experience. Just so I’m clear that I understand what you were telling us—and you can just say yes or no to these early questions—my understanding is you support the idea of a unified code of conduct, but you have some concerns about the implementation. Is that what you’re telling us?
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Mr. Chris Leahy
Yes, absolutely. We definitely need a unified code of conduct. It will make it easier to implement it across the province. I completely agree with that concept. The challenge is taking the politics out of the process, because right now, as you know, if one councillor doesn’t like another councillor and everybody else votes against them, they can make the complaints with the integrity commissioner and [inaudible]. If we truly want independence, if we truly want [inaudible] justice, we really should take the politics out of it and not have it done by politicians.
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Mr. Brian Saunderson
Okay. So, to me, a very big corollary to having the standardized code of conduct is also having supervision of the integrity commissioners themselves. As you know, in this legislation, it’s proposing that the Integrity Commissioner of Ontario, who oversees the members of provincial Parliament, would be the overseer and will publish information about each of the individual integrity commissioners across the province and would also be responsible for training. I take it from your submissions that you think that’s a good idea too.
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Mr. Brian Saunderson
Just so you know, I served in municipal council for eight years. I was the deputy mayor and then the mayor of Collingwood and served on regional council as well—we have an upper-tier government in Simcoe county—so I know that world well, and I know the dynamics around the table. To me, what we’re really trying to do here—and this would be, I think, a first in Canada—is have an ability to—and you said in your statement that you see a need to protect the public and the taxpayers from predatory politicians. So I take it from that that you agree with the idea that somebody who oversteps the boundary in a very significant way, potentially into the criminal sphere, ought not to be in office. Do you agree with that?
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Mr. Brian Saunderson
Okay. So then it comes down to the mechanics about how we would implement that. As you know, the intent of provision 223.2 of the Municipal Act is to allow elected officials to, on the recommendation of an integrity commissioner, be the judges. So in other words, it’s elected officials who are going to be the judge of or vote to accept or not accept the recommendations of the integrity commissioner. So it’s the integrity commissioner making the recommendation, and in the case of a really serious offence, it goes from the local integrity commissioner, if the recommendation is to remove that person from office, up to the provincial Integrity Commissioner, who then supports that or doesn’t support that, and then it comes back to council. So it’s gone through two independent arbitrators, if you will, and then it comes back to council, because the intent of the integrity commissioner under the Municipal Act, initially, was that it would be a jury of your elected peers who would ultimately make the decision. In this case, this legislation is proposing that it would be a unanimous vote. And you and I know, having served in that sector, that that’s a very high bar that would decide the fate of the politician, if it’s recommended that they be removed. So this would be a first, really, in Canada, to have a recall like that. There have been discussions about doing it politically, through a vote. Under the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, there is a provision for a judge to remove a politician, but that is a long process, and it has to be initiated by a taxpayer at their own expense. So this is a way to try to make accountability accessible to the public and the taxpayer, who we agree should be protected. I would like your thoughts, then, on what you think would be the appropriate threshold or mechanism, if you don’t agree with unanimity of council.
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Mr. Chris Leahy
I appreciate what the government is trying to achieve, and I agree in principle. The challenge I have is, again, taking the politics out. As you know, as you sat on council—let’s say they’re making a complaint about two councillors or three, and then what if it’s everybody else on council who disagrees with their position or their policy and there’s a unanimous vote? The bar might not be high enough. The people are the ones who decide to put the politicians as elected officials in there, and for the most part, they should be the ones who remove—even though I understand that there are two steps to the process and your objective is to take them [inaudible]. My other fear is, what marks that high bar? Right now, it’s words that are interpreted differently by multiple different integrity commissioners. And as we heard from the testimony of Mr. Guy Giorno, we’re seeing a very uneven application of the code of conduct across the province. So I’m hopeful, with your new process, that everyone will be able to train the same and not [inaudible] application of the code of conduct, but my fear is that it won’t be even, as you’re still interjecting the politics of the people who may not always agree with each other on council—deciding the fate, of removing them from office. So I still have some concerns about that. I wonder if there’s a way to include a mechanism with the judge as well, even if it’s with the Ontario Integrity Commissioner—a way to capture that.
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The First Vice-Chair (Mr. Guy Bourgouin)
We’re going to go to the official opposition for six and a half minutes. MPP Vaugeois.
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MPP Lise Vaugeois
Thank you, Mr. Leahy, for your presentation. I also struggled to hear some of it. But I think, from your responses, I am hearing quite a bit better now. As I understand it, you think that the politics should be taken out. I have to say I agree that the likelihood of getting unanimous agreement from council to remove one of their own members, I think, is actually highly unlikely, and by the time you’ve—so I wonder, am I expressing your concern about that correctly?
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Mr. Chris Leahy
Yes, that’s my concern. I agree with the concept. I agree with the need. The concern is just on the mechanism of how we’re going to remove people out [inaudible]. Yes.
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MPP Lise Vaugeois
I believe you also expressed concern about the strong-mayors act putting too much power in the hands of the mayor to actually choose who the integrity commissioner is going to be, so that—there’s already bias and imbalance built into the process. Did I understand you correctly on that?
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Mr. Chris Leahy
I 100% agree on that one. The strong-mayor powers diminish the impact of council, for sure. And even mechanisms there, where you need a super majority of council to override the mayor’s budget, we now—when we ask for things at council, we’re not asking for a recommendation; we advise the mayor to make recommendations to the budget. The strong-mayor powers really diminish the ability of councils to influence the budget. The CAO is picked only by the mayor. They’re the ones who pick all the staff, the integrity commissioners. There are inherent conflicts in that relationship. I’ve been a municipal politician now for [inaudible]. It has drastically changed the relationship with staff, under the strong-mayor powers.
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MPP Lise Vaugeois
I really appreciate you raising that, because we share that concern. Also, because in the last election—strong-mayor powers were not on the table, so this is something that’s come in after the fact for people who elected members of council believing that those members would actually be part of a democratic process that could not be overridden by the strong-mayor powers. So I appreciate that you are raising that because I think it’s a very serious concern. I also wondered—we’re talking about having training, and a consistent training, for integrity commissioners at the local level and also a consistent code of conduct. I think those are both very important moves that are in the bill. I think that matters, to have consistency across the board. And I think, also—again, if I understood you correctly, you’re really looking for consistency and fairness in terms of judgment, that they aren’t going to be arbitrary judgments but it’s a clear process, that the code of conduct is very clear so that people aren’t having to ask themselves, “Was this a breach of conduct or not?” So that’s very important. I think we agree with that, and I believe you are also emphasizing that yourself.
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Mr. Chris Leahy
Yes, no, agreed. Any interpretation of what those rules are—if you leave anything to interpretation, that’s a risk.
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MPP Lise Vaugeois
Yes. You know, what I see in this bill is that it’s a very lengthy process. First, you’ve got the local integrity commissioner, then it goes to the provincial Integrity Commissioner, then it goes back to the local integrity commissioner and then it goes to council where you have to get a unanimous vote. My sense is that actually it will never happen. There will never be—no one will ever be removed from council by the time all of those steps have been taken, and then it has to be unanimous. In council, you have personal relationships, obviously. You’re going to have internal conflict within the councillors about whether they are going to remove one of their peers.
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MPP Lise Vaugeois
Okay. I think, then, to reiterate—and please, you can agree or clarify—that the strong-mayor powers have distorted the role of councillor and created an imbalance in council and an imbalance that was not presented to voters prior to the last election. That has already skewed the balance within council and the ability of council to do its job. And then when we’re looking at holding councillors to account to a code of conduct—we will get that through this bill, but then we’re also going to get a very, very onerous process that is not likely to result in any actual removals but probably quite a lot of tension even amongst the members of council to have to come to a decision. My own sense is that it should not be going to council for a decision. This should be more like a legal decision based on the behaviour, based on the evidence and the consequences of that evidence. All of that should be spelled out so that it’s not down to people with personal relationships with each other having then to judge each other. Does that make sense to you?
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Mr. Chris Leahy
Yes, I would agree with that statement. The strong-mayor powers have definitely distorted the relationship between council and staff. It definitely made it more difficult, there is a lot more power concentrated in the mayor, and it’s difficult for members to bring things forward and make adjustments to budgets and it impacts staff. So relationships being on both sides of that bill—it’s a huge difference. I was also on the school board. It’s a very different experience for all of those to combine. Also, your comment around people kicking out their peers: Yes, that’s always going to be a challenge, but if those political relationships could skew it in any way, and if this is hanging over the council’s head for six, 12, 18 or two years, that could have a huge impact on how council operates and it’s going to overshadow a lot of things. So there are some concerns there for me, whereas if you take it out of the political process, it eliminates those concerns. The person beside you isn’t deciding your fate. It’s done independently based on, ideally, precedent and the rule of law, and people should have confidence in that outcome.
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The First Vice-Chair (Mr. Guy Bourgouin)
Thank you, MPP Vaugeois. Now to Députée Collard.
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Mme Lucille Collard
Merci, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Leahy, for your presentation. I look forward also to reading your full presentation. I don’t know if it makes you feel better, but what you have been talking about this morning and the concerns you’ve expressed are pretty much what we have been hearing on this committee throughout all of the hearing process. Today is actually the last day of the committee hearing tour, and your concerns I think are taken into account—and I’m hearing that from all sides. Now, I just want to ask you personally, because you’re a city councillor, we know that the government is proposing legislation that involves the development of codes of conduct, and we know that consultation is actually an important part of developing strong legislation. I would like to know if you or any of your colleagues were consulted on this issue prior to the introduction of this bill?
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Mr. Chris Leahy
There was consultation with the clerk and the clerk’s staff based on a previous iteration of the bill, and some of the clerk’s recommendations came forward to council, but nothing was endorsed. There wasn’t really much discussion. We saw some information. So there was an opportunity to respond, but council chose not to, so that’s why you’re seeing individual members like you saw the mayor—our mayor—make a statement. Councillor Yamada made a statement. I made a statement because [inaudible] have been going through this process with some concerns and tensions quite a bit this term of council. So we’re a little bit more on the active side of it, I suppose.
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Mme Lucille Collard
All right. Speaking about the code of conduct—and I know you’ve mentioned that you are in favour of having a unified code of conduct, and this legislation will give the minister the power to impose that standardized code of conduct across the province—I would like to hear from you: What would you like to see the minister include in the new standardized code of conduct, and who else should the ministry consult with before drafting those regulations? If you have any advice for the committee in that regard.
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Mr. Chris Leahy
Again, just continue to do outreach and reach out to different members of council. I heard through friends that there was an opportunity to speak. Even when the feedback came in the spring on the previous iteration, there was no real easy way to find out that we were able to consult on this bill until we heard about it through colleagues, so a more widespread reach-out for consultation, especially to people with experience in the current code-of-conduct regime, would be helpful and, of course, yes, that combination always makes for stronger legislation. I’m a firm believer in that as well. Again, just at the risk of repeating myself, my only concern is trying to find a mechanism to remove councillors to take politics out of the process. I recognize, as the government is proposing, a two-step process, which would be an improvement to what we have right now, but my fear is that we’ll still be in the same position that we are now, where politicians’ decisions are deciding what happens to other politicians. That’s one concern. The second concern I have is there needs to be a clear legislation in there that outlines what this high bar is, what’s the egregious reach—is it at the Criminal Code level? What is that bar? If it’s not specifically spelled out and it’s up for interpretation, then people will take advantage of that to the detriment of the whole concept of democracy, where the people choose who represents them.
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Mme Lucille Collard
Okay, so what I understand is you would like to see the legislation include more precisions about the definitions of the allegations that are to be taken into account.
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Mme Lucille Collard
Speaking about the process, instead of the local council having the ultimate power to actually remove someone from office upon recommendation of the integrity commissioners, it’s been proposed by others to have a Superior Court judge to be the one to ultimately make that determination. Do you think that would be a more unbiased process?
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Mr. Chris Leahy
I would think the judge would have a much more unbiased process because they’re not beholden to anybody. That’s their particular role. They’re there to just apply the law as it exists, and they’re not going to have that political bias. To me, that would solve a lot of issues even if you followed your process. When it went to the Ontario Integrity Commissioner’s office and it was in conjunction with some type of judge—anything along that line would increase people’s confidence in the process. There’s no question that the judge would be way more impartial.
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Mme Lucille Collard
Another practical question: My colleague MPP Vaugeois mentioned the length of the process. That could be a deterrent in terms of seeking justice and accountability. Of course, if you have a three- or four-step process and it takes four years or more—we know our justice system is a little bit backed up already. If it takes that long, then the person would presumably continue to sit. What do you think would be something more fair? Somebody who’s under investigation—should they be suspended with pay? Suspended without pay? What do you think would be an appropriate measure to protect the opinion of the public towards politicians? Because, obviously, justice delayed is justice denied. So what do we do about that? Do you have any views on that?
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Mr. Chris Leahy
It’s tough because then we’re in conflict with the concept of “innocent until proven guilty.” To me, that’s a fundamental thing. Until you’re proven guilty, to me, you should continue to do your role, I would think, because you are chosen by the people to represent the people. Until you go through that fairly, through your peers or through a tribunal, like the land tribunal or something that’s expertly chosen, I just don’t think that is fair because that actually weaponizes the process even more. The second that there’s even a complaint a person makes, I think that’s really dangerous.
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The First Vice-Chair (Mr. Guy Bourgouin)
Thank you, Mr. Leahy. Thank you, Madame Collard. Second round. MPP Grewal.
00:21:33Official transcript
Mr. Hardeep Singh Grewal
Thank you, Mr. Leahy, for being with us today on this presentation on Bill 9. When I was listening to your presentation, in the very, very beginning, you were talking about different municipalities and the code-of-conduct actions taking place across those municipalities. What I really want to talk about is that in this particular bill, we basically take all the municipalities and we apply one code of conduct throughout because we have noticed that as you change jurisdictions across the province, that threshold and the code of conduct changes as well, which makes things difficult to understand what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable as you change municipalities throughout the province. That also applies to the integrity commissioners that are making those decisions. Sometimes those integrity commissioners are then representing more than one municipality and have to continuously review those codes of conduct to ensure that they comply with that particular municipality and the complications that all brings into play. The way this bill is designed is also to ensure we remove all those complications, set up one standard across this province and ensure that our integrity commissioners are also held to account with then introducing the provincial Integrity Commissioner that we have. That decision can then be escalated into the provincial Integrity Commissioner to see if that was made impartially because those local integrity commissioners are also appointed by the municipality. So to ensure the impartiality of those decisions made by the integrity commissioners and to ensure those rules and the playing field is the same across the board, what you think about this piece of the bill and the changes that it will implement on the municipalities? What are your thoughts on that?
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Mr. Chris Leahy
I got lost in the thrust of the question, I’m afraid. Is the concern around the choice of the integrity commissioner, or who chooses it?
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Mr. Hardeep Singh Grewal
The concern is about the choice; the concern is about transparency and ensuring that the laws that govern our ethics are the exact same across the entire province, and currently they are not, the way the system is set up. I just want to hear about your thoughts on those changes in this part of the bill.
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Mr. Chris Leahy
On those particular changes in the bill, I’m fully supportive. We have a standardized code for roads; we’ve got the difference for bike lanes. We’ve got standardized codes for so many things in this province. It makes nothing but common sense to have the same kind of integrity code for municipal councillors across the province. That just makes an awful lot of sense to me. The [inaudible] is again if, under the new regime, it’s proposed that you have a more consistent application of integrity complaints with consistent training and approval of the people that are allowed to be integrity commissioners. I think that will help, because right now it does seem a bit like the Wild West. It’s up to people’s interpretation, because some of the wording in the codes is quite broad and up to interpretation, and that’s where I think it could be clearer.
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Mr. Hardeep Singh Grewal
And then my follow-up to that would be that another change that we’re making through this bill is going to be ensuring that all elected officials throughout the province—elected councillors and regional councillors—receive integrity training in terms of the ethics that are involved in being in politics. Currently, some municipalities do mandate that training; some municipalities don’t. In this, we’re now all going to regulate all municipalities to ensure that the councillors are trained and well aware of all the rules and regulations in place. Do you think that’s going to make a positive impact going forward?
00:25:39Official transcript
Mr. Chris Leahy
“Never stop learning” is what I’m trying to instill in my kids. My parents instilled it in me. I think that’s a great plan. We should always be following up with training, reminding us of what it is supposed to be, because as we get lost in the day-to-day and we’ve been working for years and decades in politics, you always need that reminder. I think that’s good.
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Mr. Hardeep Singh Grewal
Thank you very much. I will be sharing the rest of my time with my colleague MPP Racinsky.
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Mr. Joseph Racinsky
Great. Thank you so much, Chair. Thank you, Councillor Leahy, for your deputation. Based on your deputation, I can tell that you value the importance of protecting democracy and local democracy. I was wondering if there are other options that should be considered by this committee to address serious code-of-conduct violations, while respecting the importance of democratically elected local officials.
00:26:40Official transcript
Mr. Chris Leahy
Personally, I think that being a lot more prescriptive in the legislation about what is the level of an egregious breach that would qualify a person to be removed from office would increase transparency for everybody: the public, the taxpayer, as well as the people who are doing the breach. It will encourage them not to cross the line. The other piece is, I still think you need to take the politics out of the process. For your peers, the ones who make the complaints, and then to decide the complaint—it doesn’t line up with the principles of fairness, and it kind of takes away the point of democracy. If the people chose X to be their representative, then that should be their representative until the next election. That is ultimately what the general principle is.
00:27:31Official transcript
Mr. Joseph Racinsky
And so you think the decision should be made by an unelected judge, for example, as opposed to fellow democratically elected councillors.
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Mr. Chris Leahy
I think they would be more unbiased. I think they could be trained well, and I think they are going to be detached from the community they are overseeing and that people are more likely to agree with that unbiased position.
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Mr. Joseph Racinsky
And just with the rest of my time, quickly, a last question following up on MPP Grewal’s question about training: I assume you agree that it’s very important as elected officials—I was a local councillor prior to this, as well—that we set a good example, that we lead by example and that we conduct ourselves in appropriate ways, so that we increase trust in our local democracies and our democratic process. Do you think the mandatory training that’s proposed in this bill would help with that image for our institutions?
00:28:30Official transcript
Mr. Chris Leahy
I think it would help. It would tell people where the line is and where not to cross it, and it would also encourage people to be fearless when they’re pushing back and fighting back about taxes and spending and all of this. Right now, there is a fear of weaponization, that you say the wrong words and someone will file an IC complaint against you. When it’s really clear where the line is, it’s more comfortable for the politician and it’s more transparent for the public.
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The First Vice-Chair (Mr. Guy Bourgouin)
Thank you. I will now go to the official opposition.
00:29:04Official transcript
MPP Lise Vaugeois
I’m kind of trying to think through—we have got a lengthy process, and I’m imagining if we are dealing with sexual harassment, for example, in some places the person accused might be removed from their workplace for the time being. That’s a question about whether that should be there or not. But really, the problem is going to be if somebody is accused, it doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily guilty, because there are all kinds of factors there. If this process goes on and on and on for a long time, then that also means that if a person is being harassed, they’re sitting beside or opposite their harasser for a very long period of time. I’m wondering if you have thoughts on that and what would be the best way, really, to protect members of council—those with a grievance and those defending themselves from an accusation.
00:30:00Official transcript
Mr. Chris Leahy
Now you’re asking me to put on lots of hats. Again, I’ve seen those concerns. I’ve got daughters myself and I’ve seen those different challenges. But there’s no question that if someone was being harassed in any way, we need to protect the person that’s being harassed and do all the mechanisms in place. Let’s say the politician has harassed staff—let’s say in Ottawa or wherever. Then yes, it would be up to the employer and the municipality to put in constraints to separate those people. Maybe there could be rules that, when you’re under investigation, you can only attend meetings virtually. I think there’s a way to address the concerns of keeping whatever victim or complainant safe but still allow the person to do their job while the investigation goes on. That’s the best I can come up with because I’m not really an expert in that, but there’s no question we should always be protecting the victims.
00:30:41Official transcript
MPP Lise Vaugeois
No, thank you. I appreciate you thinking that through. I’m wondering also about the cost and how local integrity commissioners are chosen. One presenter has suggested that a qualified list of commissioners come from the Ontario Integrity Commissioner—that you would start with a high bar and then there would be consistent training. Is that a recommendation that resonates for you?
00:30:58Official transcript
Mr. Chris Leahy
I think just some type of vetting process—that there’s a stamp of external approval, whether it’s through the province or the Integrity Commissioner of the province. I think that would add a lot of credibility and I think that would be a step in the right direction.
00:31:11Official transcript
MPP Lise Vaugeois
Thank you. I think, again, we’re looking at a way to take politics out of this process. I also note that the outgoing Integrity Commissioner, David Wake, is concerned about the costs to municipalities. If municipalities are going to have to pay for a local integrity commissioner out of their already very constrained budgets—whether you would like to see the province then financing local integrity commissioners so it’s not an undue burden on local municipalities.
00:31:32Official transcript
Mr. Chris Leahy
That would certainly be a help to a lot of municipalities. As you know, there are hundreds and hundreds of municipalities in the province that don’t have the budget [inaudible]. I’m out visiting a cottage here in Cloyne right now which is why my Internet reception is so terrible. But that would immensely help municipalities because that’s a burden. Let’s say you have a council that really likes to complain to each other, and they lodge complaints to each other all the time about anything because there’s no bar to writing a complaint. You can make a complaint about anything. That really increases the costs to municipalities, especially the more rural municipalities. That really could strain their budgets because they’re so tight. Anything that could upload that type of process to the province would only strengthen the ability to be successful in all communities.
00:32:12Official transcript
MPP Lise Vaugeois
Thank you very much. When I was reading through my notes on the bill, it seems like there is a bit of an all-or-nothing in terms of the reprimands or punishments available. Do you have a sense that there should be graduated forms of discipline based on a standardized set of—it’s spelled out what behaviours are considered ethical and appropriate.
00:32:27Official transcript
Mr. Chris Leahy
The legislation could only be strengthened if it actually clearly outlines what the levels of breaches are and what the next level is—like the difference of being suspended from a meeting versus docked pay versus losing your seat. We should have more of a say in what those penalties are and it should be really specific that a breach of X leads to a consequence of Y. It provides transparency, and actually knowing where the line is means less people will cross it.
00:32:49Official transcript
MPP Lise Vaugeois
Yes. Thank you very much. What we’re saying is that graduated consequences are spelled out very, very clearly in the legislation and that the local integrity commissioners then have the knowledge and ability to actually respond to those breaches.
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Mme Lucille Collard
Chris, you’ve unpacked a lot and I think we’re maybe being a bit repetitive here, but I would like just to hear some precisions. Some of the strong points you made are about taking the politics out of the process, and I certainly agree with that. You also talked about respect for taxpayers’ money, and I would like to understand a little bit more what you mean by that. What aspect of this bill actually may raise concerns regarding taxpayer money? I’m not sure if you’re referring only to having a councillor being paid while deserving maybe to be removed or if you’re referring to something else altogether.
00:33:32Official transcript
Mr. Chris Leahy
Well, part of it all is again to the overall cost of implementing the code of conduct and the impact of the cost to the municipality. So if it’s really clear in the legislation that if you disparage person X by saying these types of statements, or disparage staff, or are going after things, or are at the level of sexual harassment with someone, it should be really clear in the legislation what is the breach or what is the level of breach, and then you’re not going to have frivolous complaints—or it’s really clear to the public what’s going to be going. The cost of running the integrity commissioner in the process: It can be a high burden for a municipality, so by having it really clear and transparent where you cross the line, it will be easier to either have less complaints or more targeted complaints, because every complaint costs the municipality money. So I’m talking about the cost of running the integrity commissioner system on municipalities, especially the burden on [inaudible].
00:34:18Official transcript
Mme Lucille Collard
Okay, yes. Thank you for that precision, actually. It’s helpful for me to understand. Talking about the local integrity commissioner, what improvement, if any, would you suggest for the process of appointing the local integrity commissioner? Are there any specific qualifications that you think that person should have?
00:34:32Official transcript
Mr. Chris Leahy
I think that it would be good for the qualifications that the province has to pick their own Integrity Commissioners or some principle that could be applied at the municipal level and say that you need to be, let’s say, a lawyer or a [inaudible] an expertise in these particular areas, and you’ve maybe been trained by the Ontario Integrity Commissioner and you report to them or are part of an association with them and there is peer reviewing of what you’re doing. To me, just adding some credibility and some accreditation would help for municipalities to pick a qualified integrity commissioner, and we would have a more consistent application of the code, I think.
00:35:03Official transcript
Mme Lucille Collard
Sounds good. Do you believe any candidate that is seeking an elected official position should be forced to disclose any criminal charges that they have?
00:35:10Official transcript
Mr. Chris Leahy
Absolutely, no question, because you are responsible for dealing with staff at the municipal level. You are going to events. You’re dealing with children. You’re dealing with things. I think that would do nothing but create confidence in the public. And yes, I think we should all submit to those types of criminal code review, and it should all be available online, just like our expense reports and everybody that gives us money.
00:35:29Official transcript
Mme Lucille Collard
Do you think that the rules we’re talking about today should also apply to school trustees?
00:35:33Official transcript
Mr. Chris Leahy
Oh, absolutely, no question. As a former school trustee and chair of the Durham Catholic board, I completely agree with that sentiment.