#AskSendzik: Lessons from NPCA judgement
There could be lessons learned for all political bodies from a judge’s decision dismissing an NPCA lawsuit against one of its critics, St. Catharines Mayor Walter Sendzik says.
“I think as a political body, whether its regional or city council or other agencies, we’ve got to look closely at this and say what can we learn from it?” he said during his monthly online chat #AskSendzik at The Standard Friday.
“A lot of money was spent on legal fees to carry this through on both sides both by Major Ed Smith and by the NPCA and those are funds that we shouldn’t be wasting frivolously. I think there’s going to be some learning to come out from this decision.”
On Thursday, Superior Court Judge James Ramsay dismissed a $100,000 suit filed by the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority against Smith, a St. Catharines resident, and a $100,000 suit jointly filed by its former CAO Carmen D’Angelo.
The lawsuits, and another by Niagara-on-the-Lake resident William Montgomery which was also dismissed, were related to a 2016 report Smith authored alleging the NPCA had conflict of interest problems and engaged in questionable practices.
Sendzik said he hadn’t read the decision in detail yet but it was a good day for the public to know that when they’re challenging government and something like this arises, free speech is being upheld.
“Obviously when it comes to being in political office we’re always in a position where we’re going to be criticized for decisions that we make and actions that we take and so we have to be prepared for that criticism,” Sendzik said. “There’s going to be times when we’re probably not going to be happy with what people are saying. I always look at it and go, it is a personal attack? Is it an attack that is harming my reputation? You’ve got to look at that and you’ve got to still have that thick skin.
“The lesson learned here is that we’ve got to allow the public to have a strong voice, we’ve got to be open to the criticism, and in this case the judge looked at all the material and dismissed the suits of defamation.”
Sendzik wouldn’t weigh in on whether the NPCA’s board members should resign in the wake of the judgement.
“I’m not in a position to say that they should resign, I think that’s an individual decision that they would make, but I think the decision by the judge is an opportunity for the board to say, ‘Ok what went wrong here? What’s going on? What are some of the issues we need to correct?’
“If they’re not prepared to do that then they have to ask themselves what role do they want to play moving forward.”
During the chat Friday, Sendzik discussed the Niagara Sport Commission, his recent annual older adults meeting and answered readers’ questions.
The full chat with the mayor can be viewed at www.stcatharinesstandard.ca.
Readers can send questions in for the next chat in December by Tweeting ahead of time with the hashtag #AskSendzik.