Questions for the integrity commissioner

The father-and-son team behind Hamilton-based Sonoma Homes are like hounds with a rawhide chew.

They just won’t let go of their code of conduct complaint to the city’s integrity commissioner about Ancaster Coun. Lloyd Ferguson.

Twice, Carmen Chiaravalle and his son Michael have formally asked George Rust-D’Eye to investigate their allegations that Ferguson made disparaging and slanderous comments about their honesty during a planning debate last year.

Twice, Rust-D’Eye has declined to look into the matter.

In the aftermath of those rejections, the frustrated Chiarvalles are raising questions about the power and effectiveness of the integrity commissioner that go well beyond their beef with Ferguson, questions which, lamentably, Rust-D’Eye shows no willingness to address.

The nub of the issue is Rust-D’Eye says he doesn’t have the authority “to monitor or interfere” with the conduct of councillors during debates. The Chiarvalles are, quite rightly, incredulous. What’s the point of having an integrity commissioner, they ask, if he won’t oversee councillors’ behaviour during meetings?

Their complaint dates to an April 2017 meeting at which Sonoma Homes was seeking Official Plan and zoning amendments to build a threestorey, 19-unit condo at 125 Wilson St. in Ancaster. The variances were supported by city staff.

In speaking against the application, Ferguson claimed, among other things, the developers had “betrayed” his trust, weren’t playing fair and had been “sneaking” around cutting trees.

The committee and then council turned down the variances. Sonoma denied Ferguson’s “false allegations” and appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board, which eventually ruled in its favour.

Rust-D’Eye originally cited four reasons for not investigating, one of them being it was before the OMB. After Sonoma won the appeal, RustD’Eye still refused to investigate based on the other three reasons.

• He claimed it’s up to the chair and council to govern the conduct of councillors during committee meetings.

• He claimed reviewing the conduct of one councillor during the debate could be seized upon as questioning the decision-making of the whole committee.

• And — most bewilderingly of all — he claimed it was not within his jurisdiction to monitor the conduct of councillors during debates.

Clearly, Rust-D’Eye is interpreting council’s code of conduct with a weak knee and a soft pedal.

This isn’t about challenging the qualified privilege councillors enjoy to make public policy statements which may be untrue or even defamatory without legal risk.

This is about living up to a code that’s meant to ensure confidence that councillors are operating with integrity, transparency, justice and courtesy. It requires councillors to be conscientious and diligent. It calls upon them to behave with decorum.

Whether Ferguson broke the code would require at least a preliminary investigation, such as watching the video of the meeting. Rust-D’Eye wasn’t prepared to do that.

I asked Rust-D’Eye to explain why, despite the above provisions, he doesn’t believe he should investigate questionable comments made by councillors during debates. Does that apply in all instances, no matter what a councillor may have said?

Rust-D’Eye confided his response to the Chiaravalle complaint. He emailed he doesn’t believe it would be “appropriate” to explain his reasons for his disposition and that his responsibility is to report to council, which he has done.

But obviously this is about much more than the rights or wrongs of a particular complaint against an individual councillor.

It’s about an integrity commissioner timidly interpreting the code of conduct and, consequently, a code whose feeble language desperately needs to be strengthened.

Interestingly, language in the code respecting how councillors treat city employees is much stronger and prescriptive. It explicitly prohibits them from “maliciously, falsely, negligently, recklessly or otherwise improperly” injuring staff’s professional or ethical reputation.

You have to wonder why the same constraints and courtesies that protect staff aren’t extended to the public at large.

They are, after all, the very people who pay the salaries of staff and councillors, not to forget RustD’Eye’s billings ($12,000 last year) and his annual $7,000 retainer as the city’s lobbyist registrar.