The province is dragging its feet on new rules for removing unruly city councillors
A new law would allow Ontario’s cities to fire misbehaving politicians—if the province ever gets around to passing it
A new set of rules meant to discipline unruly city councillors may not be passed in time for the upcoming municipal elections in October, despite previous promises by the Ford government.
Bill 9, the Municipal Accountability Act, came in response to pleas from city councils across Ontario that are struggling to process allegations of wrongdoing against their city councillors. These accusations include sexual assault, harassment, discrimination and ethics abuses.
Most prominent has been the case of Pickering City Councillor Lisa Robinson, who has been the subject of repeated investigations by the city’s integrity commissioner, which found she had expressed homophobic and transphobic attitudes and engaged in cyberbullying and intimidation. Pickering City Council has docked her pay several times, each penalty corresponding to a particular investigation. (Robinson has repeatedly denied the commissioner’s findings and called one such report “full of lies.”)
Those censures, however, have done little to slow her roll, which points to a weakness of the laws governing municipalities: the most any city or town can do is suspend a councillor for 90 days. Robinson, who has amassed a sizable online following of supporters, received enough donations from her followers to pay her mortgage and car fees for the duration of one of her suspensions, reported the CBC last August.
Under the proposed rules, city councils could get much tougher on misbehaving colleagues. If a municipality’s integrity commissioner determines a councillor has breached the rules, their decision would be reviewed by the province’s own commissioner. If they both agree, the council would have 30 days to vote to remove the councillor completely, with anyone subject to the complaint sitting out.
The catch, however, is that this vote would have to be unanimous to take effect. Just one ally of the accused could scuttle the entire motion. Critics say this provision seriously weakens the deal, since city councils rarely vote unanimously on anything, let alone motions this dramatic.
The province has been moving at a snail’s pace on the bill, and keeps missing its own deadlines: last summer, Municipal Affairs Minister Rob Flack promised to have it done by the fall, which never happened. When asked about it by the CBC yesterday, Flack insisted the goal was to pass the bill before the upcoming municipal elections in October, but still couldn’t provide a timeline. It looks like the rules aren’t coming any time soon. Unfortunately, that’s good news for troublesome councillors.
Anthony Milton is a freelance journalist based in Toronto specializing in long-form magazine writing. He previously worked as an assistant editor at Toronto Life, where he launched the Front Row newsletter. He regularly contributes all sorts of stories to the magazine, including deep dives on sports, business and housing as well as short-form commentary on our ever-changing city, from its obsession with cherry blossoms to its maddening NIMBYism. His work has also appeared in Maclean’s, Ricochet, TVO, the Trillium and more.
