Ontario’s minister of municipal affairs and housing is promising a years-delayed law that could discipline wayward local officials, including those accused of harassment, has not been forgotten.
Speaking during the ministers’ forum at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario’s annual conference in Ottawa on Tuesday, Paul Calandra said he was not trying to delay the introduction of a law and agreed it was vital.
“I don’t think any more evidence is required,” Calandra said.
The municipal affairs and housing minister had previously said he was targeting to Ottawa conference as the time when he would unveil the much-delayed legislation.
For years, local councillors have called on Queen’s Park to introduce a new law governing municipal conduct after numerous examples of alleged harassment and poor behaviour occurred at the local level.
Work on a law began under Calandra’s predecessor Steve Clark, who came within days of tabling a bill in November 2021.
Documents previously obtained by Global News show Clark had drafted a bill that would have given judges the ability to ban councillors guilty of certain indiscretions from running for office for seven years and force them to repay the cost of investigations into their conduct.
That bill, however, was never tabled and when Calandra took over the file he promised to revive it. What that would look like remained a mystery for months, before a letter from Ontario Premier Doug Ford.
Years after the finished legislation disappeared, Ford wrote to the province’s integrity commissioner, J. David Wake, to ask him to work on a new approach.
“Your expertise regarding accountability and transparency is invaluable in informing possible changes that will help ensure a consistent, uniform standard is applied to the conduct of all local elected officials,” Ford wrote in the letter on June 10.
The premier referenced a recent conversation between Wake and Minister Calandra.
He asked for Wake’s advice on the municipal integrity commissioner framework across the province, “including a possible role for your office” and how to standardize codes of conduct. Wake’s report is expected to be tabled in the fall.
“We’re going to get this right,” Calandra said on Tuesday.
“Commissioner Wake is working on this right now, I am not trying to delay it, I just want to make sure that it’s right.”
Emily McIntosh, founder of The Women of Ontario Say No, said Calandra’s comments were “not the announcement we had hoped for” at the annual Ottawa conference.
McIntosh and her group have pushed opposition and government MPPs to tackle local harassment through new legislation but continue to wait to see a law tabled.
She said the new approach led by the province’s integrity commissioner was logical but yet another delay.
“I think consulting with the integrity commissioner makes sense, certainly a board of integrity commissioners, it makes sense to house it under that portfolio,” she said. “But this was really, I would say, a move that was done to save face at the annual conference.”
Calandra insisted long-awaited change is coming soon — but not yet.
“Just give me a little bit more time,” he said Tuesday.