Council calls for meeting with Integrity Commissioner about ‘annual report’

London city council summons integrity commissioner over interpretation of the code of conduct. CTV’s Daryl Newcombe explains.

City council has summoned representatives of the firm that acts as London’s Integrity Commissioner for a public discussion about how the Council Code of Conduct is being interpreted and how much the contract is costing taxpayers.

“I think this warrants some further discussion,” said Deputy Mayor Shawn Lewis during Tuesday’s meeting of city council.

Lewis recommended referring the matter to an upcoming committee meeting when representatives from Principles Integrity can attend, rather than approve the annual report that outlined the firm’s activities between July 2023 and February 2025 and includes advice for council going forward.

“[The report’s] not even annual, but actually encompasses almost two years’ worth of work,” Lewis told colleagues. “I have some concern about some of the content within the report as well, both the language used and some of the commentary”

“There’s nothing much in [the report] about the costs, and I’d like to know about that, even if it’s an aggregate number,” added Coun. Sam Trosow.

Council unanimously decided to invite Principles Integrity to an upcoming meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee.

Also at that meeting, city staff will provide an update on the costs incurred to date.

According to its annual report, since July 2023, Principles Integrity responded to 18 requests from council members for advice about the Code of Conduct and received 39 complaints.

Of those complaints, it was decided that 34 did not merit a formal investigation, two investigations resulted in reports advanced to council, and three remain under investigation.

“The public needs to know how much it is costing us to deal with some of the issues that have come before the Integrity Commissioner,” explained Coun. Corrine Rahman on Wednesday.

Rahman also wants to discuss some of the annual report’s advice to councillors, including a section titled, “Staying in your Lane” that reads, “One area of concern that continues to arise relates to members of Council overstepping their role, attempting to ‘take the reins’ to fix a constituent’s problem, or directing staff how to do their job.”

“It says my role is basically to forward a constituent or resident’s concern to a staff person and leave it at that,” Rahman said. “I see my role as more than that, so I’d like to be able to speak more to the Integrity Commissioner in public about the rationale behind that perspective.”

Jeffrey A. Abrams of Principles Integrity suggests the advice about councillors staying in their lane relates to a councillor’s dual role as a policy maker and representative of constituents.

“Council has a role in interpreting and conveying information and guiding their constituents, taking the temperature, and taking it back to the council table,” Abrams explained. “Where a line I think is drawn is when a member of council becomes an advocate for individuals in the community. They’re not that. They’re part of a collective body.”

He added, “We can’t take a too rigid of a perspective on this because at the end of the day, there’s a partnership that should exist between the staff and the council in order to properly manage the complicated organization called the municipality.”

Principles Integrity is a Toronto-based firm that provides Integrity Commissioner services to a number of Ontario municipalities.

It was hired by the City of London in June 2023.

Abrams has already provided a list of potential dates to participate in a meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee.

“It’s unfortunate the Codes of Conduct are called codes, because they really are policy documents that guide elected officials in their behaviour and should be given broad, liberal interpretations,” he added.

“Our job is oversight,” said Rahman. “So it’s important that we continue to play that role, even with the Integrity Commissioner and the report that they provided.”