I’m a private citizen and, as such, am not shackled by the self-serving conditions of any so-called Code of Conduct as drawn up by the very class of people who wish to perform their collective duty in the shadows and remain impervious to outside observation and commentary.
As with most of what I have thus-far witnessed in municipal politics, we have a group of professionals who have the ability and the capacity, even the willingness, to draw up a set of rules that protects themselves from any meaningful scrutiny or complaint. They can set up a procedural regime that cloaks them from any criticism that may arise from their own handling, or even mishandling of a file, or a project within their area of jurisdictional responsibility.
I’m all in favour of professional respect and professional confidence. I know the full, yet often idealistic value of consensus. And I have seen governments and legislatures at work. Respect and confidence are two pillars that work with others to support the onerous, yet necessary, weight of democracy, local or otherwise.
But, does Council really speak with one voice? Can Council truly speak with one voice? For example, do they speak with one voice when Strong Mayor powers are employed, overriding the voices of everyone else in the room?
Integrity Commissioner Tony Fleming used these words, the One Voice Theory, as part of his investigative report offering his opinion and recommendations related to a Facebook post made back in September by Councillor Kyle Cybulski. Fleming opined that Cybulski was “talking out of school” to a degree, although he did rightly find that no breaches of cabinet confidence had taken place. Since an alleged breach of confidentiality was the most egregious charge to be levelled at the councillor, it definitely takes a lot of the heat out of the allegations as a whole, especially when we have to reduce ourselves to sweeping up around the margins to find points of criticism that we can then formulate into a case for punitive sanctions.
Like if we don’t get him on the big charge, let’s get hm on a bunch of smaller ones. It’s sort of like nailing Al Capone for his shoddy tax paperwork. But that’s not a good analogy, because Mr. Fleming takes great pains to differentiate the criminal process from the civil, and extending that further, to the municipal process, especially with respect to notions such as the standard of proof.
Professor Fleming was correct in his painting of a picture illuminating key aspects of our legal system, and he was right in his explanation of the differences. What he was la little light on, however, is the notion that there are elements of law, and of fundamental fairness, that permeate all aspects of human and professional interaction in this country, this province, and this municipality. But to Fleming, if it’s not written down in the shakily-authored document known as the Municipal Act, then whatever it is simply doesn’t exist and it simply doesn’t matter.
Among the most foundational and fundamental of these legal notions of justice and fairness is the idea that an accused can “face” his/her/their accusers, to know who it is that’s lobbing grenades at them. Please don’t get me wrong, there was a degree of disclosure that was made, where the complaints were identified, but not the identity of the person or persons making those complaints. That information was redacted to purposely hide those identities. This is a process whereby the complaint becomes the de-facto finding, or judgement, with all potential levels of engagement between complaint and judgement made moot by the fact that the accused has no idea where the pressure is coming from, which is like being blindfolded and swinging at a piñata, yet cruelly, there’s no piñata.
So protection of the accuser becomes more paramount than the protection of basic legal rights that are enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And yes, Mr. Fleming, I’m keenly aware that the Charter as presented deals with those rights in a context more aligned with criminal law. But you know as well that the Charter is a living document, our very own Supreme Court saying so way back in the early 1990’s. And as a living constitutional document, it grows and evolves to better fit the society it seeks to protect, and the citizens living within it.
Making a public complaint is always going to come with the risk of pressure of some sort, and potential blowback is one of the main reasons people are hesitant to come forward with their complaints. I absolutely get that. And it’s why the making of a complaint should be a serious undertaking, done after a requisite amount of thought and perhaps outside counsel. But once made, you should be required to “stand your ground” and “face” the accused.
Redacting names throws cold water on all that, not that any amount of redaction will successfully disguise the source of the complaints. I think I have a pretty clear idea the names behind the blotting, but what if I’m wrong? What if I assign blame (not the correct word) to the wrong person? What if subsequent words and actions are improperly influenced by this lack of information? What if you protect the actual complainant, but then you create an environment where others may get painted with a sloppy brush by mistake? Rules and potential civil litigation notwithstanding, this is a small town, and people talk, and often they get things wrong. It’s called the human condition.
Again, it’s imperfect, but by all means let’s put the weight of this imperfection upon the back of the accused. To be fair to one, we must be unfair to another. And since we seem to have this pre-disposition to view the complainant as a default victim, and the accused as being by default guilty, we create a situation where there really is no fairness, nor justice.
Councillor Cybulski gets to sit and listen to a bunch of other people talking about him but can’t say a word in his own defence outside of a letter proffered to the Commissioner as part of the investigation. The complainant gets to skulk in the shadows, the procedure being utilized having given them all the advantages, and to Mr. Cybulski, all the disadvantages.
It’s tough to make a complaint, of course it is. Yes, there can be blowback and pressure. And yes, there can be accountability directed towards the nature of the complaint and towards its legitimacy. But friends, that’s just the way it is in an imperfect world where adjudication of disputes rarely achieves unanimity of agreement and support. But that imperfection can’t nor shouldn’t be remedied on the backs of the accused. You can’t make up this imperfection by creating added imperfection through denying any accused the basic and fundamental right that’s part of the grander body of thinking known as the “Rule of Law.”
Are we afraid the accused might harass and bully and intimidate the complainant? There are rules for that. Are we concerned that there may be commentary and unsavoury shouting matches at the local arena on Saturday morning, aside from all the other unsavoury commentary and shouting matches that occur there? Because there are rules that govern that as well. Are we afraid that complainants may end up dead in the trunk of a 1980’s Cadillac? Admittedly a bit much for a Facebook post, but still, there are rules for that too.
My point is that there are existing rules that govern behaviour for councillors and citizens alike, and any breach would be one far more serious, with far greater repercussions and possible consequences, than what’s on offer for a Facebook post that travelled “too close to the line.”
About that line.
Mr. Fleming cites the line often, but does so as if the “line” in question is some sort of physical barrier with concertina wire and land mines strewn about to defend the approaches. This line, I guess, is there as a demarcation, to officially note the point at which things that are appropriate stray or go over the threshold of the desired propriety and into the land of the inappropriate,
This line, as well, is a living line, one that evolves over time and in the context of a changing society. As a human construct, it is as such vulnerable to additional human construction. So what’s black today could be white tomorrow, and yes, green can become the new red at the stroke of a pen. George Orwell understood this in his novel 1984.
Also, a line is a line, and a fence is a fence. If it’s to be as sacrosanct as breathless municipal mandarins would have you believe, then by extension we have to consider that it’s not just the line, but the territory leading up to it that is also a no-man’s land, if you will. Commissioner Fleming found Councillor Cybulski guilty for not crossing the line, but for merely approaching it. And whether the councillor approached it willingly and with intent, nobody said that he crossed it, and I thought that it would be the crossing that would trigger culpability, and not the approach.
So, Mr. Fleming, at what distance away from the line are we allowed to operate without fear of direct and “official” counter-attack? How much of our sovereignty do we yield to you and your interpretation of “the line?” How much ground must we give up, now that approaching the fence is the same offence as jumping the fence? Because the way it’s been argued, there is no line, there is instead a zone. And a zone is a much more ambiguous and dangerous place than a line, simply because it captures a larger sphere, a larger area from which potential complaints may arise. And once a zone is established, intended or not, then how close to the border of that zone can we travel, or does the zone itself require a careful and deliberate approach? Your decision, sir, has given credibility to the idea of an expanded line, with the approaches heavily defended as a deterrent to anyone considering approaching. Unfortunately, your self-derived zone includes all the property on my side of the fence, and honestly, I can walk there whenever the hell I please and you don’t get to say jack about it.
A lot of what I’m witnessing here I’ve seen before, unfortunately. A recurring and often-cited piece of enabling legislation, poorly crafted and written, and in many cases politically-driven, used as a cudgel to keep others in line, to keep them in the box. A piece of legislation, I might add, that can be modified on a whim, or even changed completely by any government of the day.
Like most things, it started out well-enough and with no-doubt good intentions. But what do you do when an instrument designed to bring structure and coherence to municipal government is instead used as a tactical vest to shield people from reasonable criticism? Criticism that has grown louder and sharper as a result of those very same people (or more accurately some of them) refusing to communicate, and instead preferring to throw up barricades.
There are many millions of taxpayer dollars on the table here, yet we have no readily available way to effectively scrutinize nor call into account the actions, inactions, decisions or non-decisions of professional staff.
As Mr. Fleming said, and something supported by Reeve Emon, a power imbalance exists between elected councillors and town staff. They’re both absolutely right as much as they’re both absolutely wrong. Such a power imbalance does, in fact, exist, but it exists in the opposite direction. Councillors are routinely ignored and left in the dark around important municipal matters. And now, with Strong Mayor Powers the flavour of the day, they are increasingly pushed aside and rendered even more impotent. It appears, now more than ever, that the role of the town councillor is to sing from the song book provided. Like we don’t need you to write the tunes, we just need you to sing them and then take the heat if the performance isn’t up to the liking of the audience.
Did Councillor Cybulski really sully the professional reputation of Director Andrea Bishop by calling into question an engineering report that was riddled with flaws and critical omissions? I don’t think so. Is he not allowed to call any of that into question? It’s Director Bishop’s department, and unfortunately, that’s where the buck stops for all matters related to engineering and infrastructure. While they are not her flaws or oversights directly, they happened under her watch, maybe even under the watch of a predecessor, and that’s the notion of departmental accountability. So who the hell else is in any position to answer those legitimate, yet uncomfortable, questions? Does questioning the integrity of a ball field lighting tender with wild variances necessarily impugn the reputation of Kelly Latendresse or Shawn Eckford? Of course not, but I recognize the questions as being uncomfortable nevertheless. Yet I I saw nothing personal in the comments of the councillor on Facebook, and I’ve never seen any indication of a lack of respect from the councillor directed towards these department directors or managers specifically. He may well have his opinions, but I sure wasn’t able to derive them from the Facebook posts in question.
Politicians can be criticized long into the night and until the cows come home, but civic staffers are off-limits. Once their tender sensibilities are bruised by even the faintest of criticisms, they can arrange for Tony to come to their defence under the guise of a Code of Conduct complaint. And Tony being one of them, albeit also a lawyer “specializing” in municipal affairs, they can reasonably count on some level of support from that direction. What truly drives them to bafflement is the fact that, once the Integrity Commissioner makes his report and recommendations, it’s often soyanara for him, since Council must approve and adopt those recommendations in a vote. I guess, when it comes to municipal staffers, you can’t have it completely your own way. But still, it must rankle.
In terms of appropriateness and practicality, how is a proceeding like a municipal council meeting ever to gain and hold credibility when there is a reeve and three councillors in the room, and one of the councillors is the topic of the integrity investigation under consideration, thus precluding him from speaking and voting? That left us with three functioning elected officials, with one of them chairing the meeting and pulling off no small number of procedural gyrations to ensure he got a result it appeared he was after, that being the censure of Councillors Cybulski and Dick. It appeared, to some eyes anyway, as the application of some never-before-heard-of Strong Reeve Powers, where you get to consult with the Clerk (redacted names of complainants be damned) as to what levers can be pulled to get that desired result.
This is all part of the calamity that ensues when you have a mayor and a councillor on personal leaves of absence, and another councillor who simply couldn’t make it for reasons unknown to me. Three people missing from a seven member team, and of the four remaining, one gets pinched to be the scorekeeper and apparently also the manipulator of procedure. Sorry, but seconding your own motions, in fact I believe more than once, flies in the face of every notion of democracy that has ever been accepted by anyone who is truly serious about the concept. And if the argument is that such arcane tools can be used to “get things done,” might I suggest that the resolution of an issue involving a member’s reputation, integrity, and financials might be something we put over to a time when the team is back together, or more back together than it is now? Plus, your notions regarding what constitutes “quorum” come close to being laughable. A room full of empty chairs making big decisions that could be easily made in a week’s time, but instead through machinations, are “forced” to a resolution that involved censure.
I want to give Councillor John McDonald the credit he deserves for being the mature voice in the room on this night. That voice once also belonged to another, but that other may see political opportunities too tempting to resist, whereas McDonald shows up every time, politely and respectfully asking questions, never out of tone, always with a view to getting things “right,” another somewhat nebulous term. And even with all the times he gets shot down, he handles it with grace and professionalism and seemingly without personal rancour. He also appears to do this without seeking personal political advantage.
It was McDonald alone who advanced many of the things I’ve talked about today, and it made me certain that I was witnessing something and somebody that Renfrew needed more of.
So we were left with one guy muted, two others potentially jockeying for mayor in November of 2026, and a single councillor who was willing to stand up and “fight that good fight.”
Now they’ll lock horns as to the punishment, the penalty required to satisfy Mr. Fleming’s findings and recommendations. The consequences to be directed towards Councillors Cybulski and Dick. Fleming says twenty days of pay docked for Cybuski, and fifteen for Dick. Councillor Legris probably felt he was being magnanimous by suggesting lighter penalties, but when push comes to shove, he purposely wants to be seen as censuring his two colleagues, but also to come across as compromising, reasonable, and empathetic. Sorry, but to me, that mark was missed. Especially with respect to the timing and pushing the decision in the face of multiple absences? It seems to me to be somewhat contrived.
A councillor makes somewhere in the area of $15,000 a year. If I take that number as a starting point, then a twenty-day wage penalty comes out to around $822.00 before taxes. A substantial amount, sure, but I don’t think Cybulski or anybody else is in this thing to get rich, and there’s no $15,000 ever made that would make being a town councillor an attractive proposition. Public service, especially public service here in Renfrew, is not a pursuit for those looking for gold at the end of rainbows. There is no rainbow, and there’s definitely no gold.
This is a bigger thing than 800 bucks, and it’s a far more important fight than simply one over lost wages. This fight is fundamental to getting to a place where municipalities like ours can run more smoothly and more efficiently. And more maturely.
Tony Fleming doesn’t like it when you fight the good fight. He, and the other like-minded folks who make a living interpreting the words and actions of others, would prefer you just shut up and sing.
ATTACHMENTS
- Integrity Commissioner Report
2. COUNCIL CODE OF CONDUCT
NEWSMAGRENFREW 