Too many local politicians and staffers are quitting — and it's time the province stepped in, Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark said on Tuesday at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference.
The exchange began when Kenora councillor Lindsay Koch called on Clark, in front of hundreds of gathered delegates, to pass legislation that would let councils fire local politicians for harassment and abuse.
"This government has demonstrated its capability to push through legislation very quickly. What is the delay here and when will you commit to taking this seriously enough to push through?" she said, earning her the biggest round of applause of the conference.
The government does take this seriously — but there's a bigger issue, Clark said on Tuesday: too many councillors and staff are quitting, which he suggested is due to a lack of training.
"Obviously, you all agree that there's a challenge around codes of conduct. I think there's a bigger problem out there that we, collectively — municipalities, AMO, ministry — need to ensure that people are actually trained to understand what it is to be a councillor, and the relationship between council and staff," he said. "I'm pretty unique in that I was a mayor and CAO, but there's a lot of things that I'm not happy with. And I'm tired of sending members of my ministry to sit in council chambers to watch the proceedings."
Clark suggested his government is thinking of ways to intervene. He said he spoke to the ministry about the issue that morning.
"I think there is a systemic problem that the ministry has to deal with in terms of how we train new councillors, how we interact with councils, how councils interact with staff," he said. "Because far too many CAOs and clerks and other employees are leaving, and far too many councillors who just literally got elected in the fall have packed it in. And I think there's something that we need to do as a ministry."
"Pass Bill 5!" came a few shouts from the audience, intermingled with light applause.
Mayors and city councillors can't be fired for workplace sexual harassment, thanks to what some call a "lack of tools" in the legislation governing Ontario municipalities.
Liberal MPP Stephen Blais tried to change that three times. His Bill 5 would have allowed a city's integrity commissioner to investigate a councillor. If the commissioner found the allegation warranted removal, they could send the case to a judge who'd make the final call.
Currently, the harshest penalty they can face is a suspension of pay for 90 days. The only way to get municipal politicians fired is at the ballot box.
The bill was inspired by the Rick Chiarelli saga in Ottawa. Councils in Mississauga and Brampton have also recently seen allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment.
Each time he introduced the bill, Blais thought he had a good chance of getting the government's support, but it appears to have been killed for good when the Tories voted it down in May.
More than 150 municipalities passed resolutions in support of Bill 5 — and Clark himself told Koch in August that he'd take action to hold officials to account, she said.
Clark's office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Associate Minister of Women's Social and Economic Opportunity Charmaine Williams, formerly a Brampton councillor, spoke after Clark. She said she was "committed to finding a solution," but that Bill 5's power could be "dangerous."
"I've sat amongst rooms and tables with elected officials, people of colour, and they've all said the same thing: that there could be a risk that if I say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing, then my seat could be in jeopardy," she said.
Koch didn't buy that justification, noting that the number of people who "cry wolf" is very small.
"And so a small per cent of a small per cent of people who are trying to push some agenda by falsely reporting something doesn't feel like a good enough reason not to have something in place," she told The Trillium on Wednesday.
Koch said the convention's raucous reaction to her question proved that local officials are fed up.
"We've watched people in our communities who we admire be pushed out or be treated poorly in really varying degrees of egregiousness. And we've had enough," she told The Trillium on Wednesday.
—With files from Aidan Chamandy
