10 O'Clock and All's Quiet on the Integrity Front

It was a holiday .I expect nobody was doing much of anything. Mr. Nitkin may not be finding it particularly easy to deal with the much publicised complaint of the Gang of Six accompanied by an investigative report prepared and written by legal counsel, retained at taxpayer's expense.

It must be sort of like being a council member at a meeting with the Mayor presiding. The rules vary so , depending on whose ox is being gored, it can seem like there are no rules. Procedural Bylaw notwithstanding.

Section 223.5 ( 1) of the Municipal Act states :

Duty of Confidentiality----The Commissioner and every person acting under the instructions of the Commissioner shall preserve secrecy with respect to all matters that come to his or her knowledge in the course of his or her duties under this part.

Section 223.6 (1) Report to Council

If the Commissioner provides a periodic report to the municipality on his or her activities,the Commissioner may summarize advice he or she has given but shall not disclose confidential information that could identify a person concerned.


It's terribly tedious reading the Municipal Act or any Act for that matter. Still one must understand how the instrument is being interpreted and used. There must be consistency in application.

It's a relatively new Act and as noted before, only a handful of municipalities are using it. .
Since no appeal is provided it has not been tested in a Court of Law.

If a person's intention is to exercise authority under an Act, it's probably a good idea to have at least a sense of the limits of authority.

Otherwise, there's a chance one might fall afoul of the very Act one is using to accuse another of wrong-doing.

Harm can come to a person like that

I scanned Toronto's Code. The legislation came about after the scandal about millions of dollars over-run in the acquisition of computers . A financial officer was being wined , dined and bedded by an ambitious and especially energetic salesman.

A Councillor had money for luxurious items without an obvious source.

The computer over-run cost millions and the city spent millions on the Bellamy Inquiry which revealed the seedy conduct described above

One of the penalties in the City's Code, is for the villain of the piece to give back the money.

The intent of the Code is clearly to discourage corruption in all its forms.

Their Code doesn't say a word about Councillors being prohibited from talking about Council's decisions and being required toexplain to the community.the" attitude" that led to the decisions, even if said councillor disagrees with said decisions.

A City Ad Hoc Committee took months to create the Code. Despite all of their earnest endeavour, I hear it's not working too well. . Several reports have been presented from the Integrity Commissioner.

At first Councillors were allowed $5 k to defend themselves . Then it was reported, they were not using defence counsel and since there is no provision for appeal, that was not thought to be a good thing. The allowance for defence was upped to $20k.

The Commissioner's initial retainer was $104k. a year. Don't know what it's at now. But that didn't cover the salary of his administrative assistant and the work of investigating a complaint.

It is a very, very, expensive operation .

But that's not how we do it up here in Aurora. Oh Dear Me ....No..

We don't fool around with the rules the government writes or even the ones we write ourselves

We just jump into the mucky-ducky, splash about, have fun and make sure everybody gets splattered.

The night they proclaimed their legal investigation and complaint, their favourite volunteers were in the audience to enjoy the triumph. The Mayor and Councillor MacEachern joined them afterwards at 12,30a.m. Our Fearless leader was overheard to say:

"Now let's go and celebrate."