Mayor warns about cost of “frivolous” complaints and the media writing “so quick they don’t even know the facts”

Heather Wright/The Independent

St. Clair Township’s Integrity Commissioner says the deputy mayor and a councillor were not in a conflict of interest after voting to increase staff at the club and make it a year-round facility. 

As reported in The Independent March 27, one of the complaints stems from Deputy Mayor Steve Miller’s vote during an in-camera session which approved the creation of six full-time positions at the township’s golf course as it becomes a year-round facility.

The complaint alleged Miller voted on the positions despite the fact his daughter works at the club. Sources say her position was one of the part-time jobs which were turned into full-time positions.

St. Clair’s Integrity Commissioner, John Mascarin of Aird & Berlis LLP, told council April 7 that a second complaint had been filed against Councillor Cathy Langis alleging she was also in a conflict since her daughter-in-law works at the club.

Minutes from the in-camera meeting where the six full-time positions were approved were released the day after the meeting. They show Miller and Langis voted in favour of the new positions. Only Councillors Pat Brown and Brad Langstaff voted against the move.

The Ontario Municipal Act says council members have to declare a pecuniary or financial interest in items where there could be a conflict; that includes if a family member would benefit. Councillors who declare an interest may not vote on the matter and generally move away from the decision-making table or leave the room. 

When council members declare a pecuniary interest, they must file a formal declaration which is listed on their municipality’s website. In St. Clair Township, the last entry was Nov. 18, 2024.

Mascarin reviewed the report about the six positions, the voting records for both the private and public council meeting on March 6 and case law about conflicts of interest under the Ontario Municipal Act.

“I didn’t do a full investigation per se. In fact, I’ll be perfectly candid, I didn’t even go and ask the members for their views on the matter, because I thought it was a pure determination of mixed fact and law, which I could do and make an assessment without, in a sense, incurring more costs or bothering more people and delaying the reporting of the matter,” Mascarin told council via video conference.
He added he acted quickly because of “media attention.”

The Integrity Commissioner did not dispute Miller and Langis voted on the issue in both private and public sessions. He said Langis was not in conflict because in-laws are not considered children in case law covering municipal issues.

But Miller had to the potential to be in conflict, Mascarin said, if it were not for the wording of the report filed by Kendall Lindsay about the jobs in March 6 report to council for budget deliberations. In it, the director of community services said, “We will closely monitor booking trends throughout the year, and once we determine there is sufficient business to support year-round operations, we will seek approval from the CAO to formally transition these positions to year-round roles.”

Mascarin said because the report made the transition to full-time employment conditional upon “sufficient business” and the approval of the CAO, that made the approval of council conditional. The Integrity Commissioner cited case law which said “possible future outcomes do not constitute pecuniary act” under the Ontario Municipal Act and therefore Miller was not in conflict.

“Neither breached the act,” Marscarin said.

Under the Municipal Act, the decision by an Integrity Commissioner on issues of potential conflict of interest are final and can only be challenged by the elector who filed the complaint. If he wished to move ahead, the issue would go to court.

Mayor Jeff Agar thanked Mascarin for his “perfect report” noting it was the first complaint ever filed in St. Clair Township. He then asked how much the law firm was billing the township for the investigation.

“$8,800 for the inquiry report,” said the lawyer.

“It’s just good for everybody to know, because in case – this is our first, our first one – and like I said, you did an excellent job. I appreciate all your work into it,” said Agar. “Just to keep people honest; like if somebody doesn’t like somebody – I’m not saying that happened this time – but they make frivolous reports or whatever, there is a cost to this,” he added.

Agar then noted that members of the media “always like to get into this sort of stuff” and suggested if they “haven’t done all their paperwork and they want to just do it right away” and then “write something in the paper and it is wrong,” there should be a retraction.

Mascarin said that the township could ask for that, adding, “I didn’t think that this was what I would call a frivolous or unmerited complaint. I think there was some reasoning in some sense. And of course, some of the discussion took place in closed (session)…so the applicant wouldn’t have known what happened in closed and was making some assumptions. So, on that basis, you know, I did see that there was a merit to this.”

Agar replied he had “no qualm” about someone making a complaint but “people in the media, they have to write something so quick they don’t even know the facts…Now, everybody’s going to look at somebody different…I’m just trying to get a message out here; maybe they can pull back a little bit until the actually know all the facts.”

Aside from Agar, Councillor Pat Brown was the only member of council to comment on the report. “This was during our budget meeting, and we had budgeted for these positions to become full time. But now what you’re saying is that until the CAO makes a determination, they will remain as part time employees?” Brown asked.

The Integrity Commissioner says the staff report made that clear.

Brown said he felt council had approved the move to make the positions full-time.