Ombudsman’s office to increase oversight of city councils

TORONTO — Ontarians with complaints about secret meetings among their city councillors will soon have recourse to the province’s chief watchdog.
Acting Ombudsman Barbara Finlay says her office will have new powers to investigate complaints against municipal councils effective January 1.
The expected mandate comes through the Public Sector and MPP Accountability and Transparency Act, which also gives the Ombudsman’s office the authority to examine complaints related to public schoolboards and universities.
The change comes after a particularly active period for city council meetings that were closed to the public between Sept. 1, 2014 and Aug. 31 of this year.
Finlay released a report saying her office received 195 complaints about closed council meetings, reviewed 85 of them and found 16 to be illegal. The number of complaints jumped 73 per cent from fiscal 2014.
Finlay says most breaches come about through ignorance of the rules, but cautions councillors not to rely too heavily on email or informal meetings to keep city business out of public view.
“After January 1, we will finally be able to help the public with their concerns about any aspect of municipal government,” she said at a press conference. “From garbage and snow removal to social programs to the conduct of councillors.”
The new mandate expands on duties the office has assumed since 2008 when it began scrutinizing complaints about city council meetings that were closed to the public.
Not all of Ontario’s 444 municipalities would use the Ombudsman to field such complaints, however, as councils also had the option to hire investigators through the Association of Municipalities of Ontario.
Finlay’s latest report offered statistics from the 206 municipalities that opted to use her services.
The City of Clarence Rockland was the source for 20 complaints, the most of any municipality this fiscal year.
Finlay said her office’s expanded mandate is meant to enhance rather than replace local systems to promote transparency, adding the Ombudsman is to remain a last resort option for complaints that aren’t being addressed.
“I strongly encourage all municipalities to have their own local complaint mechanisms,” she said. “We will be there to make sure that local mechanisms work as they should, to step in where they fail or where they cannot go.”