Harsher harassment penalties sought

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This article was published 04/04/2018 (2360 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE mayor of a Manitoba municipality wants a penalty stiffer than censure after the RM was hit with hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees due to alleged harassment.

Dave Kreklewich said Oakland-Wawanesa’s chief administrative officer and assistant CAO are on stress leave after a male councillor allegedly bombarded the women with emails and text messages about financial matters.

The CAO and assistant CAO took legal action against the municipality in 2016, and the lawsuit is ongoing. So far, the rural municipality has paid $275,000 in fees to the staff members, the mayor said.

“We’ve got outstanding legal action. We don’t know what it’s going to cost, what the court’s going to award. But, as you know, harassment is becoming a bigger thing and people are paying more attention to it. It’s a very serious concern,” Kreklewich said Thursday. “Staff should be able to operate within a safe environment and not have to worry about harassment.”

The mayor sent a letter to the municipality’s ratepayers in December, advising them of alleged harassment being dealt with by council for a second time. Kreklewich also wrote more broadly about how harassment has come under the microscope around the world, not just in politics.

“Whether you are a judge, sports figure, Hollywood actor or producer, a member of the news media or an elected official, this behaviour is unacceptable at every level, in every way,” he said.

The only action council members can take to punish bad behaviour is censuring someone’s words in the minutes of a meeting. A majority of votes plus one are needed to censure the minutes.

Kreklewich said his council censured one councillor in 2015, when conflict stemmed from the amalgamation of the former RMs of Oakland and Wawanesa. When a second incident involving the same councillor occurred, council sent a letter to ratepayers, feeling the move carried more weight.

“Under the Municipal Act, there are no penalties. The only thing I wanted to do is make everybody aware that we’re doing what we can, but we’re limited as to our tools,” the mayor said.

Gavin van der Linde, mayor of the town of Morris, wrote a resolution asking the Association of Manitoba Municipalities (AMM) to lobby the province to “strengthen the powers of censuring when a council member is clearly in contravention of the municipalities’ code of conduct.”

Van der Linde said after he heard Cheryl Christian, a councillor in West St. Paul, was having a tough time passing a similar motion there, he wrote his own, so it could get on the agenda at the AMM general meeting. (The resolution passed by more than 90 per cent of delegates provincewide in November.)

“Censuring is simply a slap on the wrist, but does not achieve anything besides pointing out that council agrees the behaviour was inappropriate,” the mayor said in an email.

Van der Linde said he would like to see the province protect elected officials under the Workplace Safety and Health Act, which covers employers and employees.

“I think it would be a great help to have to province change the legislation to include municipalities,” he said. “It feels like the province is starting to take this issue seriously and, hopefully, come up with some recommendations to resolve this.”

Kreklewich said he wants to see an independent body established to investigate complaints and impose penalties harsher than censure.

“But at the same time, there’s got to be a penalty to be enforced against the people that are initiating the harassment, if that’s proven.”jessica.botelho@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @_jessbu