EDUCATING COUNCIL IS LIKE HOUSEBREAKING A DOG

Below is the transcript of my Delegation to Council last evening. I sent both it as well as the referenced Ontario Bar Association article to the Woolwich Observer, K-W Record and CKCO-TV hours prior to the meeting. As Council behaved like grownups last evening I may well send them the same this morning. The key to housebreaking dogs and councils is persistence and patience.





DELEGATION TO WOOLWICH COUNCIL September 15, 2015

Good evening . I’m here this evening to discuss issues and concerns with both the Municipal Elections Act 1996 (MEA) and with a politically appointed group designated to enforce that legislation. That group are known as MECAC which stands for Municipal Elections Compliance Audit Committee.

The Ontario Bar Association produced a document in July 2013 describing various elements of the Municipal Elections Act. On page 3 it states “A member of the public with an honest belief in a contravention can be reasonably confident that those with more expertise, the committee and the auditor, will pursue the matter. The threshold for granting an audit is low, and the committee has minimal discretion where the application demonstrates reasonable grounds. The applicant is not required to make a prima facie case but to demonstrate that she/he has “an objective belief based on compelling and credible information which raises the “reasonable probability of a breach of a statute.”.

Again on page 6 we are once more advised that “the threshold for requiring an audit must remain low.”.

Case law also supports this concept. In Wendy Gunn v. Katherine Bateman-Olmstead we are advised that Section 81.(1) of the MEA “ is a threshold requirement only. Once it is plain to a municipal council that there are reasonable grounds for the belief “that a candidate has contravened a provision of this Act relating to election campaign finances” under section 81.(1) then the result is “ a compliance audit of the candidate’s election campaign finances””. Furthermore “the audit is intended to be comprehensive , even if the trigger is but a single apparent contravention.”.

Many of the contraventions brought to MECAC’s attention by myself including a fourty page package of evidence were admitted to by the candidate on July 2, 2015 here in these chambers. Despite this MECAC improperly and I believe illegally refused to order a Compliance Audit.

It is my belief that MECAC are supposed to be operating under the rules of the host municipality, in this case Woolwich Township. I am aware that under Woolwich’s Procedural By-Laws there are rules regarding conflicts of interest both for councillor’s as well as for members of committees of council. I would suggest that just because those rules are selective and clearly unenforced in some circumstances, is no reason not to enforce them in regards to MECAC. Having a MECAC member with a long and loyal history of service to Mercedes Corporation, making decisions in regards to a Council member with ties also to Mercedes is a blatant conflict of interest. Less obvious perhaps would be two former Regional Councillors on MECAC also making decisions regarding a current municipal and Regional councilor.

Whether these conflicts of interest explain MECAC’s two poor decisions I do not know. What I do know is that two of their three decisions were beyond the pale and most likely illegal. There is a sports saying referring to “winning ugly”. I suggest that here in Woolwich a more accurate saying would be “winning illegally”.

Alan Marshall Woolwich Township resident and elector