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The City of North Bay dragged its heels in hiring an integrity commissioner, now it has just one month left with the clock ticking.
According to the province's Bill 68, it is mandatory for a municipality to have an Integrity Commissioner in place on or before March 1.
So staff will suggest a solution at tonight's council meeting, and that is for the city to appoint Guy Giorno, Partner, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP as Integrity Commissioner for a term of three years, with an option in favour of the City to extend the agreement for an additional term of up to two years.
Giorno is a former Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister of Canada.
"Guy remains an active, influential force in shaping lobbyist registration laws in Canada. Widely recognized as Canada’s leading expert in lobbying law, Guy regularly represents corporate executives and lobbyists in enforcement proceedings, and guides companies and organizations to adopt strategies and policies to ensure political law compliance," according to his bio on the firm's website.
"Though representing public-sector institutions (respondents) in freedom of information appeals throughout the 1990s, Guy now focuses on compliance and best practices. In addition, he also helps requesters to exercise their rights to obtain government records under freedom of information access to information legislation.
"An active, non-partisan advocate for government transparency, lobbying ethics and electoral reform, Guy has been appointed as the integrity commissioner (responsible for administering government ethics rules) in the Ontario municipalities of Brampton, Durham Region, Dufferin County, Renfrew County, Wellington County, Amaranth, Brock, Centre Wellington, Clarington, Deep River, Dryden, East Garafraxa, Grand Valley, Greater Madawaska, Madawaska Valley, Melancthon, Minto, Mono, North Algona Wilberforce, Orangeville, Oshawa, Pickering, Scugog, Shelburne, Uxbridge and Whitby."
According to the staff report, Giorno will perform the following functions:
- Application of the Code of Conduct
- Application of procedures, rules, and policies governing ethical behavior of Council and local boards.
- Application of Municipal Conflict of Interest Act (MCIA), which includes requests from Council and local boards for advice respecting their obligations under Codes of Conduct, obligations under a procedure, rule or policy that governs ethical behavior, requests for advice re: obligations under the MCIA.
- Educational information to Council, local boards, corporation and the public re: codes of conduct and the MCIA
The 2019 operating budget contains an annual estimated budget of $150,000 to employ Giorno.
That may not be nearly enough.
"There's not many people coming into politics that aren't doing it for the right reasons," Councillor Tanya Vrebosch told CKAT about conflict of interest complaints. "But what we learned is the cost associated with the investigation of complaints is going to cost us a lot of money. An investigation that one municipality had, they spent $130,000 on one investigation. We've budgeted $150,000 for an integrity commissioner for this year but one investigation could simply wipe us out. So we already know we have a lineup of some of our frequent flyers that are waiting for our integrity commissioner," Vrebosh, the Deputy Mayor explained.
"The City has no historical trends to base this budget estimate and the level of activity is not predictable," explains the staff report. "Therefore, the monthly costs will be monitored and overall budget variances will be funded corporately. This budget will require a few years of monitoring to determine the most appropriate amount."
