TRANSPARENCY
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O’ Connor, city solicitor for Ottawa, says that the requirement for codes of conduct and integrity commissioners will be“ a real game changer” for Ontario.
“ You will have about 400 municipalities waking up saying,‘ My goodness, I need a code of conduct for my members of council. I need an integrity commissioner.’ That will be a significant change for the integrity regime for smaller municipalities that don’ t have the resources, that don’ t have the time and money to make these changes. And this will be imposed on them by another level of government,” he says.
O’ Connor sees the potential for smaller municipalities to incur expensive investigations by overzealous commissioners into frivolous or vexatious accusations against elected officials.“ That’ s where the expenses start racking up,” O’ Connor says. Some investigations, where there is no finding of guilt,
Rick O’ Connor
can cost $ 10,000, $ 15,000 or $ 20,000, he says. A small town in Ontario, he notes, might be able to handle one but might not have the resources to handle three or four such investigations in a year.
O’ Connor’ s advice to municipalities is to set up policies and procedures where commissioners can deal with investigations summarily if warranted.
“ Some integrity commissioners feel‘ I have to investigate.’ No, you don’ t. First, you ask,‘ Is this a problem?’ If there is, yes, go ahead and investigate. If no, don’ t investigate and deal with it summarily. So there has to be that two-step process.”
On other issues of transparency, O’ Connor says several elements in the revised Municipal Act are overdue, such as the ability to move in-camera to protect third-party commercial interests. Previously, he says a“ bizarre dichotomy” allowed municipalities to refuse to disclose a document to protect those commercial interests, but wouldn’ t allow councillors to go in-camera to discuss it because of the narrowly defined range of subjects that are allowed to be held in-camera in Ontario.“ There was a disconnect between the privacy legislation and the in-camera legislation that, to the credit of the minister in the new legislation, have in some cases joined the two,” he says.
Professor David Siegel of Brock University says increased transparency is a fact of life for all levels of government and argues that municipalities simply must cope with the demands expected of them.
“ We are playing in a somewhat different environment than we used to, but the emphasis on transparency has not occurred suddenly,” Siegel says.“ I would tend to disagree somewhat that local governments are being put upon so differently than provincial or federal governments. All levels of government have been moving to more transparency.”
Siegel agrees that the public must realize that increased transparency is not free:“ People will have to recognize that transparency comes with a cost.”
Fleming says municipal governments have always been subject to much more scrutiny and transparency than other levels of government, which, in his opinion, causes them to be creative and nimble.
“ In my days as a city manager we might moan and groan and complain about all of that stuff. But the proud tradition of people who work in municipal public service is to suck it up, knuckle down and figure out how to deal with it and be really quite innovative while you’ re at it,” he says.
Jeffrey Abrams, who recently retired as city clerk for Vaughan and chairs AMCTO’ s Municipal Act advisory team, says there is a balancing act to be achieved.
“ Municipalities are creatures of statute. They don’ t have a lot of inherent authority and they are perhaps disadvantaged by a catalogue of municipal legislation that is getting a little tired,” Abrams said.
“ There is a balance to be had between full transparency and
12 Q2 2017 www. amcto. com