City solicitor Peter Leckie has hung out a "Not Welcome" sign to an offer by the Integrity Commissioner to help City Council strengthen its Code of Conduct bylaw.
An 11-page report to be presented at the next meeting of Council, and delivered a year after Valin's original report, says his attendance ”is not required."
Read Leckie's complete report here.
Oddly, it flies in the face of a motion already passed by council last December inviting Valin to appear before it.
See: Council to discuss Integrity Commissioner's recommendations, but won't touch main report
At that council meeting Councillor Mark King moved an amendment to a motion that Valin's report be noted and filed. Seconded by Councillor Scott Robertson, the amendment asked that Valin be invited to a city council meeting in the new year (2021) to discuss his recommendations set out in his report.
"I think it would be wise on the part of council to listen to the Honourable George Valin. He's a judge, well respected here in the City of North Bay, and I think those recommendations are timely," King said at the time. Council voted to pass the motion.
See: City officials 'thumb their noses' at Valin's report
A central issue in Valin's report was Mayor Al MacDonald breaking Invest North Bay's own conflict of interest bylaw by voting to award a $1.2M marketing contract to his friend and mayoralty campaign manager Bill Ferguson's company TWG Communications. Valin similarly cited Canadore President George Burton for voting to give TWG the contract, even though Ferguson was Chair of the Executive Committee that determined Burton's contract and pay.
Community activists Kevin Ferris and Nicole Peltier have been heavily involved in holding municipal leaders' feet to the fire regarding Valin's report.
Ferris told BayToday that, "The impotent (INB) Board refused to enforce its own conflict of interest rules. That's a major problem when you've got two guys sitting on a selection committee giving their buddies million-dollar deals and nobody sees anything wrong. And the Council endorses this behaviour by silence. Nobody has spoken up so they are obviously fine with this whole thing. The Board is ultimately responsible to them."
"Invest North Bay operated in camera, no oversight, and no results for over five years."
Ferris says Leckie "cherry-picked" items to include in the report recommending Valin not be given a chance to speak.
"The author (Leckie) failed to mention that Valin clearly outlined the real conflict that McDonald and Burton had with TWG. That's not in Leckie's report, and that's important.
"It appears Council is just happy with just the bare minimum standards that are laid out by the government. They're not looking at improving any of that. I would think we would want to have the best standards, not the bare minimum."
Ferris says if other citizens see this issue as being important, they should email councillors and ask them to vote no on Leckie's recommendation but instead vote to hear what Valin has to say.
Those email addresses can be found here.
BayToday reached out to Mayor Al McDonald for comment but received no response.
