Integrity in Ontario

It's interesting to read events in eleven municipalities in Ontario with Codes and Integrity Commissioners.

Ontario has over four hundred municipalities. Only eleven have the gear. Does that suggest integrity is not high on our scale of values?

Reading complaints and analysis, investigations and decisions and the annual reports of existing Mandarins suggests that is not a reasonable conclusion.

Toronto has the longest experience. Rob Ford appears to be the main target.Last week he apparently challenged the ethics of the Integrity Commissioner for reporting a decision during an election period.

Ford had used his Councillor's office and letterhead, paid for by the City, to raise funds for football gear for a school in his ward.

He claimed to have raised a hundred thousand dollars. Turns out he raised only a piddling thirty-eight thousand.

Football it seems, is a sport he knows something about and believes kids would be better off if they have such programs to keep them off the streets. A school in his ward has neither a program nor the means to provide it. It happens in inner-city neighbourhoods.

In his own support , Rob the Incorrigible, argued if an outgoing Councillor could spend $14,000 of a city provided budget in a farewell party to himself, he could use his city paid for stationery, telephone and office to raise funds for kids in his ward.

The Integrity Commissioner said No and recommended donations received by Ford be returned to their source.

Ms Leiper has been Integrity Commissioner of Toronto since August 5th 2009.

"Ms. Leiper, a lawyer and adjudicator, has practiced administrative and criminal law since her call to the Bar in 1987. She served most recently as Visiting Professor, Public Interest Law at Osgoode Law School where she implemented the first public interest graduation requirement for law students in Canada. Ms. Leiper is also the former Chair of Legal Aid Ontario appointed by the Government of Ontario from 2004 to 2007".

I copied and pasted that from Google.

While googling, I brought up David Mullan, Toronto's first Integrity Commissioner.

I found something really interesting.

"Professor David Mullan's Narrative of his Case, and its Successful Resolution"

"This is a narrative of how the administration of the University College of Cape Breton, Sydney, Nova Scotia, tried to compel one of its professors to apologize for writing a letter to the local daily which criticized a story which it had run about the achievements of its then-president, Dr. Jacquelyn Thayer Scott "

Professor Mullan's narrative is lengthy. I soaked up every word. It ended as follows;

"I shall spare visitors to my web site the tedium of my moralizing on the issue. Its significance will be obvious enough to interested persons.

It remains for me to express my heartiest thanks to the many people who have expressed their support over a dreadfully long period of time. In particular my colleagues Michael Manson, Peter MacIntyre, Allen Britten, and Dale Keefe, in their various official capacities in the Faculty Association of University Teachers of the University College of Cape Breton, and to all my other colleagues and friends here and elsewhere; to Mr Jim Turk, Executive Director, CAUT, for his commitment to the prosecution of this case, and to all the officers of that organization, and indeed the entire national membership whose financial contributions to the organization made possible its provision of legal counsel; to Mr. Jerry Kovacs of Ottawa if you need a good lawyer, and one who understands academic issues. . . .who provided excellent representation and a model of diligence in his preparation; to Olga Wojtas and the editorial staff of the Times Higher Education Supplement who provided even-handed coverage of the story in the issue of 26 October 2001; to Clive Seligman and his colleagues at The Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship for their interest in the case and for writing a letter in my behalf to the current administration. Academics have plenty of differences and sometimes they fight amongst themselves about matters large and small, but when the freedom of the academy comes under a threat there is a great movement of closing ranks and presenting a united front. I have been the beneficiary of that unity, and I am very grateful.

David George Mullan, Professor,
History and Religious Studies "

Isn't that illuminating. Especially the last sentence. It bears repeating.

"Academics have plenty of differences and sometimes they fight amongst themselves about matters large and small. but when the freedom of the academy comes under a threat there is a great movement of closing ranks and presenting a united front. I have been the beneficiary of that unity,and I am very grateful."

In times past I have enjoyed the defence of colleagues not only of the right, but the obligation to be forthright in political judgement. I know whereof Mr. Mullan speaks. Except I have not had his resources.

When David Nitkin, during the only permitted workshop held on ethics,boycotted by the Mayor and Councillor Mac Eachern, used the word collegiality, in relation to our current Council, I knew then he had no idea of what he had embraced when he accepted appointment as Aurora's First Integrity Commissioner.