A Bit Of Business

David Letterman has a sheaf of pages . He shuffles through them and picks one here and there which he delivers with inimitable timing. Then he tosses it over his shoulder to the sound of a plate glass window smashing.

When I opened the envelope on Saturday afternoon containing the latest complaint against me. my inclination was to toss it . Instead I put it aside and didn't look at it again until Sunday night.

There were odd things about it.

The envelope had been sent to the town hall by priority post. It was addressed to me and marked confidential. It was stamped as received on September 17th.

Well now. The Code process calls for the Clerk of the municipality to be the conduit between complainant, the Integrity Commissioner and the person being complained about.All in a plain brown unidentifiable envelope for confidentiality.

I am reminded of the phrase; brown-paper baggery. All bottles used to have to be carried from liquor stores in a brown paper bag in formerly temperance Ontario.

The covering letter to the complaint was headed ;

Suzanne Craig
Integrity Commissioner


The writer informed me she had been asked by David Tzubouchi to take on the complaint. He had recused himself from the file. He received it on July 30th and forwarded it to Ms Craig on August 31st.

I read it on September 19th and I am required to respond by September 27th.

The Code allows ten days for response.

Jason Ballantyne had filed the complaint to the Integrity Commissioner on Jul 29th .

H e filed the harassment complaint to the Director of Human Resources in early September.

Got tired of waiting, I guess .
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It's all very interesting.

I keep casting my mind back to David Nitkin's visit to my backyard last summer. I didn't tell you this before. He had a complaint against me.

He had called me to make an appointment as part of the process. I told him, politely, I had no intention of participating . He beseeched me to let him have ten minutes of my time. He would come to my home.

Eventually, I agreed .My two daughters were present. I do not entertain gentlemen callers alone in my home.

We spent the time on my deck in the shade of the maple tree. We drank tea and exchanged philosophies. Academics aren't the only ones, you know. Three hours and forty minutes later he left without my agreement and my advice ringing in his ears that he would not be allowed to do the job as he saw it.

He said he could not share the complaint without my agreement to participate.

Here's what I have gleaned from it all.

Mr. Nitkin's main expertise is Ethics. The workshop he held, boycotted by the Mayor and Councillor MacEachern, addressed the difference between legality, morality and ethics.

The essence of ethics are fairness, integrity and balance.

For an ethical determination to be made, many aspects of a question must be considered.

Mr. Nitkin argued "times change" I must be prepared to change. Mr Nitkin needed me to believe that. Without my participation, there would be no balance. There could be no ethical decision.

Various legal opinions provided to Council have held a Councillor is bound to certain conduct by a majority vote.

Bob Panizza , a former clerk suggested I might be in Breach of the Oath of Office by not submitting to the Code and signing the document.

I disagree. I did not surrender free will when I put my name forward for election. I bound myself to an Oath of Office before taking my seat on Council.

I never considered the Code of Conduct adopted by Aurora Council as intended to be anything but a club to silence criticism. Why would I, a person elected to hold forth on my views, agree to anything so unethical?

Consider the record:

The St Kitts woman came to Council and hurled a torrent of unfounded and unsubstantiated accusations at a Councillor, despite intervention twice from the town solicitor, that "Council has no role in this matter".

The presiding member ignored the solicitor. Instead, called for suspension of procedure to permit the comments to become part of the public record .

Subsequent minutes showed the comments absent from record.

They were challenged. The Chief Administrative Officer, stated he, the solicitor and the clerk had a conference and decided not to include the comments in the record.

I later observed "the minutes were doctored" Which they were and had to be.

The comments, made in public, heard by many, were slanderous. Published in town minutes they would have become libelous as well.

St. Kitts made the comments. Recorded in the town minutes The town would have been responsible for their publication and therefore liable.

If Council did not have the collective wisdom to "save the town harmless" which is our duty, the statutory officer and the town solicitor nevertheless could not publish the comments and bring harm to the municipality.

The minutes could not be allowed to record the slanderous comments.

The St Kitts woman was first to file a complaint to the Integrity Commissioner.

Six Councillors were next, on the pretext they were defending staff from "criticism" that "the minutes were doctored"

The lawyer retained, advised there was no provision for six members of Council to file a complaint. Six signed it anyway. I guess they figured there was safety in numbers.

Two more complaints were filed by one of the six.

The next was filed by a staff member, propelling himself head first into a political debate.

And the next was a complaint of harassment from the same staff member against the same Councillor.

When I find the policy, I will read you the definition.

I never did no such thing.

All complaints have been directed against myself.

Did I mention I believe The Code was never intended to be anything but a club to silence a critic.

Was I right or was I wrong??

P.S. Did I tell you I heard the Mayor did her damndest to get the complaint filed while she was out of the country.Her signature would not have been on it if that had happened. .