RM of Sherwood heading to court in effort to oust council member

Tim Probe plans to fight expulsion amid municipal corruption charge

The RM of Sherwood is taking court action in a bid to remove Tim Probe from its council entirely.

The matter is due to come before Court of Queen’s Bench on Aug. 17. Probe took a leave from his position as a councillor after he was charged with municipal corruption last fall.

In March, Probe’s representatives insisted he would not resign entirely; he had previously agreed to step aside only during his criminal proceedings. In a statement, Probe had said he would fight any action taken by the council.

The RM’s move comes after Probe — who separately is set to stand trial on two charges stemming from an alleged February 2016 incident — was found by the Saskatchewan ombudsman to have been involved in a conflict of interest, which he failed to declare, during an RM council meeting.

The ombudsman’s January 2017 report was undertaken after residents led by Gary Howland pressed for repayment of legal fees to the RM — fees which councillors had incurred during 2014’s Barclay Inquiry into the RM’s dealings.

Collectively the councillors were reimbursed hundreds of thousands of dollars after the RM passed a bylaw to let it do so. However, the bylaw was ruled invalid by the Court of Queen’s Bench in September 2015.

Undertaking a report after it received a complaint, the ombudsman found Probe — who was paid back some $50,000 — was in a conflict of interest when voting on a matter involving those fees at a January 2016 council meeting. Former councillor Joe Repetski was found to have been similarly at fault.

If successful, the RM’s latest application would see Probe disqualified and his Division 2 seat vacated. The action, launched in April, relies on guidelines given by the ombudsman, which found that Probe had contravened the Municipalities Act by failing to take steps to deal with the conflict.

“Under The Municipalities Act, a council member who contravenes Section 144 is disqualified from council, must resign immediately, and is not eligible to be nominated or elected in any municipality for 12 years,” the ombudsman’s report read, adding the RM could resort to the courts if a council member failed to comply, and urging the RM to vote on taking legal action. No such advice was given in regard to Repetski, as he is no longer a councillor.

The ombudsman noted that, “if the judge is of the opinion that the disqualification arose through inadvertence or an honest mistake,” they can dismiss the action.

The RM’s filing — which cites Section 144 and other sections and subsections of the Municipalities Act — also includes an affidavit from current deputy reeve Carl Husum, providing his outline of events and echoing background information from the ombudsman. Of the crucial January 2016 meeting, Husum said that Probe did not declare the conflict, as the ombudsman found.

Meanwhile, after his June preliminary hearing, Probe was committed to stand trial on his criminal charges at a date still to be set. As previously reported, court documents show the two charges against Probe involve the Barclay Inquiry legal fees and a proposed Suncor Energy truck stop on RM of Sherwood land belonging to the parents of reeve Jeff Poissant.

The charges allege Probe committed a breach of trust, and that he, “(did) offer to or agree to accept from another person an advantage or benefit as consideration for his voting in favour of a measure, resolution or motion; or to aid in procuring the adoption of a measure, motion or resolution.”