Recommendations ready for Ford government on councillor harassment, conduct

Ontario’s integrity commissioner has completed a series of recommendations for how the province can handle harassment and misbehaviour on local councils, Global News has learned, delivering nine suggestions to the premier.

At the beginning of the summer, Ontario Premier Doug Ford wrote to the integrity commissioner asking for advice on how to improve municipal conduct rules after growing pressure to come up with a way to handle harassment on local councils.

“This summer, the premier asked the Integrity Commissioner to provide advice on approaches to improve the standardization of the municipal integrity commissioner framework,” a spokesperson for the integrity commissioner told Global News.

“The Commissioner provided the premier with a report on Sept. 30.”

The issue has bubbled under the surface in the province for years. Councillors have been accused of sexual misconduct in some towns and cities, while a Mississauga councillor was alleged to have keyed a colleague’s car repeatedly.

The City of Pickering has made headlines repeatedly on the issue, with the mayor and council recently writing to the provincial government begging for help with one colleague, who has been found guilty of misconduct by the local integrity commissioner more than once.

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The report from Ontario’s integrity commissioner lays out a total of nine recommendations that the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing is considering.

A spokesperson told Global News the report’s recommendations include a single, standardized code of conduct for all towns and cities and mandatory training for all integrity commissioners, city staff and councillors.

It also recommends the government create a standard integrity commissioner process that has to be followed and a potential regional resource-sharing system to help smaller municipalities handle the cost of investigations.

According to the government, the full list of recommendations is as follows:

• The ministry should create a single, standardized code of conduct for all municipalities.
• Training should be required for integrity commissioners, councillors and municipal staff.
• The ministry should require each municipality to provide accessible information that identifies its integrity commissioner, the scope of jurisdiction, and contact information.
• The ministry should maintain a registry of all municipal integrity commissioners.
• Integrity commissioners should have access to a central database of all completed inquiries.
• The ministry should establish a standard process for integrity commissioner investigations.
• The ministry may wish to consider a centralized or regional system to assist smaller municipalities manage costs.
• Require integrity commissioners to submit a public annual report.
• Establish a requirement for proactive financial disclosure.

The ministry spokesperson said the government was reviewing the recommendations and would “work with” the integrity commission “on an approach to implementing” them.

2:29 Ontario was ‘days away’ from tabling a bill on councillor harassment. So why is it still not law?

Moving ahead with the new recommendations would mark the second serious effort the government has made to tackle the issue of councillor misconduct.

The previous plan, which came within days of being tabled in 2021 under then-minister Steve Clark, focused on punishments for misbehaving local officials.

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.

Over the summer, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Paul Calandra asked municipalities for “a little bit more time” to his potential law on the subject right.