Surrey council to consider freezing new ethics complaints until fall election

A controversial byalw amendment intended to prevent the Surrey’s ethics commissioner from hearing new complaints until the next municipal election is heading back to city council.

It’s one of several amendments being proposed to the Council Code of Conduct Bylaw when council meets Monday.

If approved, the “Moratorium on Complaints and Investigations Near Election” would “suspend the processing of all complaints received in the period from April 12 of the year of the general local election until the day after the general voting day.”

A similar amendment was proposed in January, but was removed from the agenda just hours before council met.

“He should not be cut off six months before an election,” said Annie Kaps, a member of the group Keep the RCMP in Surrey which has filed its own ethics complaint against Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum.

“I can see it maybe during the election period, which is 90 days, where there are laws regarding advertising and things like that, but not six months, which is just atrocious.”

4:50 Surrey City Council to vote on pausing new ethics complaints until October election

Kaps is one of seven Surrey residents who was banned from physically attending council last fall, for what the mayor claimed was repeated failure to keep comments “relevant” when addressing council. The ban was rescinded in December.

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Global News has requested comment from Mayor McCallum on the proposed freeze to ethics complaints.

McCallum currently faces an ethics complaint about staying on as chair of the Surrey Police Service board while charged with public mischief, a probe that would not be affected by the proposed changes since it is already underway.

When the proposal was first raised in January, McCallum said it was the subject of “misinformation” and that the goal was to strengthen the bylaw to ensure the Office of the Ethics Commissioner can’t be used for partisan purposes during the election period.

Other proposed changes to the Code of Conduct Byalw to be considered Monday are intended to “improve” the legislation by clarifying both the commissioner’s jurisdiction and “a number of rules of ethical conduct.”

Council will also look at proposals intended to “improve on various procedural matters pertaining to the intake of complaints and the dispute resolution processes, including aligning the Code of Conduct with related policies and procedures.”