Councillors in three RMs had conflicts: ombudsman

Saskatchewan’s ombudsman has ruled there were conflicts of interest in the recent actions of five councillors from three Saskatchewan rural municipalities.

Mary McFadyen, tasked with investigating municipal complaints, looked at the RMs of Grayson, Orkney and Beaver River.

In Grayson, McFadyen found a council member who managed his father’s construction company participated in a council decision to rezone land to allow for a campground development. The construction company had previously worked with the developer, who had received an estimate from the council member to build the campground for $500,000.

According the summary report, “McFadyen found that the council member should have known that participating in these decisions gave him an opportunity to further his private interests. Because he did, ratepayers could not be sure he had acted in the community’s best interests.”

The council member resigned from council, so it was unnecessary for McFadyen to make any recommendations.

In Orkney, the RM’s waterworks operator was also a council member. According to the report, the council member was “at the meeting when the council first appointed him and at meetings when his invoices were approved,” and that he should have declared a pecuniary interest and not participated in the decision to hire himself.

It was recommended council vote again on whether the man should be the waterworks operator and the RM accepted the suggestion.

Three councillors were involved in the RM of Beaver River investigation. There, council members, according to McFadyen’s report, “participated in discussions and decisions to test for gravel on leased Crown lands when they were in a conflict of interest and did not take steps to deal with their conflicts.”

The report outlines how one councillor took part in a decision to check for gravel on land he leased, while two others participated in decisions to test for gravel on land leased by their close relatives. McFadyen recommended the council take conflict of interest training and pass a bylaw to adopt improved procedures, but, the RM did not accept that because council members “felt they had done nothing wrong.”

McFadyen’s office has received about 1,000 complaints since being tasked to oversee municipalities in 2015.

Roughly one-third of those concerned RMs. Some 22 per cent involved cities, and 17 per cent were about towns.