Why some councillors feel the Chiarelli sanctions are 'totally inadequate'

Ottawa's city council made history this week by imposing the harshest penalties available when it suspended Coun. Rick Chiarelli's pay for 270 days.

But to some, themost severe of sanctions availabledon't go far enough.

"I am dissatisfied with the options available to us," said Alta Vista Coun. Jean Cloutier, before voting with the rest ofcouncil to dock Chiarelli's salary by about$79,000. "I'm sorry that this is the limit of this council's authority, because it is totally inadequate."

Kanata North Coun. Jenna Sudds, who tabled a motion to donate Chiarelli's pay to community organizations that deal with violence against women, echoed Cloutier's view.

"If this was a city employee, what would have happened to this individual?" she said in an interview. "Frankly, I would expect that they would have lost their job, not just 270 days' pay."

• Council levies harshest penalty available against Chiarelli

There have been public callsfor Chiarelli to resign, including a petition with more than 560 signatures as of Friday eveningand an open letter from several community associations in his College ward. If he won't leave voluntarily, theywant the provincial government to amend the legislation to allow for the removal of an elected official.

That doesn't look like that's going to happen any time soon. Still, the integrity commissioner's damning report is a stark example of the power and the shortcomings of relatively new rules governing the behaviour of municipal politicians.

Mayor urges council to approve sanctions against Rick Chiarelli for inappropriate behaviour

4 years ago

Duration 0:48

Council voted unanimously Wednesday to impose the harshest penalties available against Coun. Rick Charelli, whose pay will be suspended for 270 days.

2 more reports on Chiarelli

By now, the lurid details of the allegations against the veterancouncillor that he asked job applicants if they'd go braless to work events, described how they'd haveto flirt with men in bars andsign them up as volunteers, showed them photos of women in revealing outfits are well-established.

• IN HER OWN WORDS: 'I cannot let any other woman go through a process like this'
• 'Better without a bra': More women come forward with allegations against Chiarelli
• Former Chiarelli staffer is 13th woman to allege inappropriate behaviour from councillor

Integrity commissioner Robert Marleau foundChiarelli's behaviour qualified as harassmentandtarnished the public trust in the office.

He recommended that council which has the final say on meting out punishment to one of its own impose the harshest penalty available under provincial legislation:the suspension of 90 days' pay for each complaint.

Chiarelli has launched a judicial review, arguing that these sorts of complaints are not within the integrity commissioner's jurisdiction, and that council was biased toward him. He has also firmly denied the allegations.

But before the legal proceedings get underway in any serious manner, two more reports regarding Chiarelli will be coming out:another from the integrity commissioner, and an internal complaint filed under the city's workplace harassment policy.

Both could possibly be as damning as the one released this week.

Rules on behaviour relatively new

Given the findings by the integrity commissioner, some believe the penalty against Chiarelli just isn't enough.

"All I know is that Rick Chiarelli is still at the table, exercising power, but those women who applied to the city for work in good faith, they are not," Cloutier told CBC. "It is profoundly unfair it sickens me."

While Cloutierdoesn't mince words about wanting hiscolleague to depart, he draws the line at giving council the power to remove an elected official.

"That would be a road that would be fraught with politicization."

There are relatively few ways a councillor canbe kicked out of office. Theymust beconvicted of a criminal offence, violate one of a number of election-related rules,or contravene financial conflict-of-interest rules under Ontario's Municipal Act.

Historically, there have been few rules about non-money related behaviour.

That's why a Toronto city councillor can lose his seat for improperly spending $26,000 on a campaign victory dinner, but Chiarelli can keep his after behaving ina way that in Cloutier's words was "soul destroying, life destroying, career destroying" for the women.

No conduct rules until 2013

Chiarelli's behaviour may appear a more serious breach of the public trust, butrules about money are fairly clear-cut. Not so when it comes to judging behaviour, which is by its very nature more subjective.

In fact, until very recently, most municipalities didn't have any such codes of conduct.

Ottawa was one of the first cities in Ontario to pass one in 2013, a year after instating the office of the integrity commissioner.The code, part of Mayor Jim Watson's 2010 election platform, wasvoluntary at the time, but the province mandated codes of conduct for all municipalities in 2017.

The provincial rules for codes of conduct came into effect just last year.

"Before that, there were no rules, there was no obligation to have rules, there was no process. And we really just relied on the good faith of everybody," said Stphane Emard-Chabot, a University of Ottawa law professor who was once an Ottawa city councillor.

"There is a lot to learn yet about what works, what doesn't work, how far we shouldor could go. And the Chiarelli case is a really useful step in that evolution."

Removal by judicial process: professor

The integrity commissioner's findings are raising eyebrows at Queen's Park. Local MPP Lisa MacLeod has discussed the issue with Minister of Municipal Affairs and HousingSteve Clark, himself a former mayor of Brockville.

Clark hasn't indicated that he's willing to pass or even discuss legislation to remove a councillor from office for bad behaviour.If any politician contemplated that very serious step, the decision-making would have to be handed over to a judicial body, said Emard-Chabot.

He pointed to the influence-peddlingcase against former Ottawa mayor Larry O'Brien, in which he was found not guilty and thejudge gave a sophisticated analysis of what the community felt was corruption.

"I could see something similar being applied," said Emard-Chabot. "Does this violate what the community generally would view as an egregious error in conduct? Maybe that's the threshold. So there are ways of doing it. None of these are easy."

'A very bizarre situation'

The Chiarelli case has also underlined the shortcomings of having council judge one of its own.

While many professions law, medicine, accounting have their own boards of ethics regulatingtheir own members, individuals aren't being judged by the colleagues they work with cheek-by-jowl.

"It is a very bizarre situation to be in," said Sudds, who stood at her seat nearChiarelli during a November council meetinginprotest.

At the next meeting Chiarelli attended in December, most of the rest of council did the same.

It may have seemed likea pretty mild demonstration, especially compared to the women who threw bras on trees in front of city hall.

But that silent protest is now beingcited in Chiarelli's judicial review as an example of council's bias. The councillor is arguing his colleagues had already made up their minds about the allegationswell before the integrity commissioner's report was released.

Move decision-making to 3rd party

While it'll be up to a judge to decide if council was biased at the end of that day, all council did was agree with the integrity commissioner's report and recommendations it would be a much cleaner process if codes of conduct findings were handed off to a separate body.

The integrity commissioner already fills that bill to a large degree, in that his office operates independently from council. But perhaps the Chiarelli case will show why councillors should be kept out of the decision altogether.

Some city politicians feel simultaneously muzzled about what they can say, but also under pressure from their communities to denounce what they perceive as wrongdoing. Sudds, for example, declined to speak to media last fall about her protest, even though she later said she found the accusations against Chiarelli very disturbing.

And Coun. Theresa Kavanagh, who's the council liaison for women and gender equity issues, took it on the chin on social media for not standing.

Watson was asked by a radio interviewer last December about the Chiarelli allegations, and the mayor said he'd like to see the councillor "do the right thing" and resign. Chiarelli is using that statement against council now, as well.

"Politicians cannot play their political role and speak up about these issues, whether it's sexism or racism or whatever else," said Emard-Chabot.

Taking the final approval out of a council colleague's hands, he added,would make for a sounder process.

"It protects people like Chiarelli to better make sure they have their full rights," said Emard-Chabot, "and also leaves the people we elected to speak on behalf of us, which they essentially can't do right now without risking the whole thing."