Calgary city councilors have about six weeks to review proposed changes to their code of conduct policy.
Changes put forward by the city’s integrity and ethics office include improvements to the complaint process, empowering the integrity commissioner to initiate investigations regardless of whether the complaint is anonymous or withdrawn, strengthening a duty to cooperate with investigations work, and addressing the undue influence of councilors on staff.
Integrity Commissioner Ellen-Anne O’Donnell and Ethics Adviser Emily Laidlaw outlined the proposed changes.
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Laidlaw said Calgary’s bylaw tried to strike a balance, that kind of middle ground’ when it comes to the confidentiality or anonymity of complainants.
One prospective change allows the integrity commissioner to continue an investigation without the complainant or if the commissioner is aware of a matter to be investigated but has not registered a complaint.
Another suggestion is to inform councilors when an investigation is underway.
“The amendments we have made clarify that if the integrity commissioner believes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that a breach has occurred, a notice of investigation is issued to the member of the council and then a formal investigation is undertaken ,” Laidlaw said.
Other changes will clarify the process in areas such as timelines for responses, confidentiality and maintenance of records and evidence, that any obstruction will be a presumptive violation of the ordinance, and failure to cooperate with investigations will be included in a report that go to the council, be noticed.
Once a board member is found to have breached the code of conduct, the integrity commissioner can only recommend sanctions – the board as a whole has the final say, but this is limited by previous court decisions.
Sanctions are supposed to be remedial, not punitive, related to the offense, proportionate, and not interfere with the board member’s ability to do their job.
“What we propose is to amend the by-law to make it clear that the council can impose other sanctions or alternative sanctions to those listed in the by-law. And they must be those that the council deems reasonable in the circumstances,” said Laidlaw.
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Alternative sanctions may include restricting access to confidential information, removal of travel or hosting privileges, community service, a withdrawal, or even an increase in duties and workload.
Other proposed amendments include making Indigenous relations training and anti-racism training mandatory for all councilors at the start of their term.
And the definition of “undue influence” will be broadened under the ordinance when it comes to board members.
“We want to make it clear that if a member directly or even indirectly influences city employees or their staff to engage in conduct that would otherwise be a violation of the ordinance, that member will be investigated as a violation of the ordinance,” the ethics adviser said.
After the council members heard the presentation at the executive committee on Wednesday morning, the council members voted unanimously to withhold debate until the January 31 committee meeting. Any decision from that meeting will be passed on to a later council meeting.
“There were several members of the committee who asked for more time for a review so that we can properly have a code of conduct in place,” said Mayor Jyoti Gondek.
Ward 11 gr. Kourtney Penner said having clearer guidance in the code of conduct is an important step to improve consistency in resolving conduct issues and for improved transparency.
“Having something more formalized gives consistency year after year,” she said.
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Calgary City Council’s code of conduct bylaw was adopted in 2018 and had “relatively piecemeal” amendments in 2020 and 2021. A review of the code of conduct bylaw is required every five years, meaning a comprehensive review in 2023 will be within the regulation. fit.
In the past three years, there have been six cases where five different board members were found to have breached the code of conduct.
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