Brampton (Two Council Members), 2018 ONMIC 18

Citation: Brampton (Two Council Members), 2018 ONMIC 18
Date: July 10, 2018

INTERIM REPORT ON TWO COMPLAINTS

Notice: Municipal Integrity Commissioners provide investigation reports to their respective municipal council and, in most cases, make recommendations for imposition of penalty or other remedial action to the municipal Council. Therefore, reference should be made to the minutes of each particular municipal council to obtain information about the particular council's consideration of each report. When possible, a link to the relevant municipal council minutes is provided.

Please find below the link to the corresponding council decision. http://www.brampton.ca/EN/City-Hall/meetings-agendas/City%20Council%202010/20180711ccmn.pdf (see minutes of July 11, 2018, resolution C209-2018)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTERIM REPORT 3

FIRST COMPLAINT (2018-01) 3

SECOND COMPLAINT (2018-03) 3

PROCESS FOLLOWED 3

STATUS 4

CONCLUSION 5

INTERIM REPORT

1Subsection 5(4) of the Complaint Protocol provides that, "The Integrity Commissioner may make interim reports to Council where necessary …"

2This is such a report.

3Section 223.5 of the Municipal Act requires that I maintain confidentiality. Subsection 223.6(2) provides that in a report on whether a Member has contravened the Code, I may disclose such matters as in my opinion are necessary for the purposes of the report.

4It is not necessary to identify the parties in this interim report.

FIRST COMPLAINT (2018-01)

5In order to preserve confidentiality I will not identify the Rules that are alleged to have been contravened.

6The allegation under one of the Rules, in particular, involves significant documentation and the issues are complex.

SECOND COMPLAINT (2018-03)

7The Complainant alleges that the Respondent contravened Rules No. 4, No. 12, No. 14 and No. 15 of the Code.

8The Complainant in File 2018-03 is the Respondent in File 2018-01. The Respondent in File 2018-03 is the Complainant in File 2018-01.

PROCESS FOLLOWED

9In operating under the Code, I follow a process that ensures fairness to both the individual bringing a Complaint (Complainant) and the Council Member responding to the Complaint (Respondent). The process is governed by the Council Code of Conduct Complaint Procedure.

10This fair and balanced process includes the following elements:

The Respondent receives notice of the Complaint and is given an opportunity to respond.
The Complainant receives the Respondent's response and is given an opportunity to reply.
More generally, the process is transparent in that the Respondent and Complainant get to see each other's communications with me.¹
The Respondent is made aware of the Complainant's name. I do, however, redact personal information such as phone numbers and email addresses.
As a further safeguard to ensure fairness, I will not help to draft a Complaint and will not help to draft a response or reply.
Where appropriate I will, however, invite a Complainant to clarify a Complaint. When a Complaint has been clarified the Respondent is provided with the original document and all communications between the Complainant and me related to clarification.
When a Complaint has been clarified I deem the date of final clarification to be the official date the Complaint was made.

STATUS

11The Complaint in File 2018-01 was submitted February 26.

12The Respondent in that file requested and was given an extension to the end of March. The Response was submitted March 19.

13The issues under one of the Rules are detailed. It is estimated that the investigation will require an additional month.

14The complaint in File 2018-03 was filed May 9. If the investigation were completed within 90 days then the process would not end until August. However, the investigation of this complaint will be somewhat involved, given the nature of the evidentiary issues. The process continues.

15The two complaints involve different issues but there are connections between the issues and, as noted, the parties are the same (though reversed).

CONCLUSION

16The investigations in File 2018-01 and 2018-03 will be completed as quickly as possible. Respectfully submitted,

Respectfully submitted,

Guy Giorno

Integrity Commissioner

City of Brampton

July 10, 2018

Footnotes

Occasionally, in my discretion, I may decline to share a communication when the communication is irrelevant to the investigation or I will not consider the communication and (in either case) the other party is not prejudiced by the lack of sharing.