Ontario's municipal affairs minister still wants to find a way to allow cities and towns to turf councillors who have committed egregious violations.
Minister Paul Calandra's long-awaited update to the municipal accountability framework finally appears to be taking shape, as the integrity commissioner recently handed in his recommendations for the future legislation.
Notably absent from those suggestions, some noted, was a way to get rid of councillors found to have seriously harassed their colleagues — an issue that has plagued Ontario councils of late.
There is no way to "fire" a councillor in Ontario — they can only be voted out.
But that angle will be worked out with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO), which has been pushing the government on the topic for years now, Calandra told The Trillium on Tuesday.
"Yeah, that'll be what we chat with AMO about," he said. "It is still something that's top of mind for me. But what is the right process to do it?"
There are "a lot of really, really, really good things" in the integrity commissioner's recommendations, which include a standardized municipal code of conduct, mandatory training, proactive financial disclosures and more, Calandra said.
"But that is the one last piece we want to make sure is — it's the one piece that has bothered me a lot in terms of constitutionality," he said. "It is still something that I plan on putting in."
