Law must be changed to curb ‘Wild West’ behaviour on councils

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

Curbing bad behaviour among councils, municipal staff and affected citizens is a “complicated issue” that requires more human resources help and changes to provincial legislation, the president of the Association of Manitoba Municipalities said.

The Free Press reported this week about councillors and municipal staff across the province receiving threats, calling police and enduring petty incidents such as yelling and name-calling at work.

There have been lawsuits, ombudsman investigations and at least one human rights complaint in the Rural Municipality of St. Andrews.

“We don’t have hard-and-fast, quick solutions. Good behaviour is hard to legislate, let’s be frank. But the reality is there are possibilities, there are some ideas out there that we want to look at with this government,” Association president and Steinbach Mayor Chris Goertzen said Wednesday.

Goertzen dodged a question about how many calls the Association has received about abusive behaviour in municipalities.

He noted the group contracted a human resources company, PeopleFirst, starting last November to “address a wide range of HR-related questions” among municipalities, including fielding calls from councillors or staff in need of advice.

He couldn’t say how many calls the company has received.

He said he is set on making changes, but wouldn’t commit to pressing for them before the general municipal election on Oct. 24.

“Obviously, having a quick solution would be great, but the reality is, this is a complicated issue that requires some good dialogue. It requires some creative thinking and we’re willing to do that with the province,” Goertzen said.

Some rural Manitoba residents are fed up with the disrespect and governance issues they say they’ve witnessed at the local council level.

Shirley Hill and her husband live in Winnipeg and have had a cottage in the RM of Lac du Bonnet since 1997. She said they won’t be retiring to their cottage community due, in part, to local politics.

“To be fully dependent on that municipality? Not a chance,” Hill said.

The RM of Lac du Bonnet has been investigated by the Manitoba ombudsman and the provincial auditor general.

Hill took her concerns about local governance and bylaw enforcement to the association, and said her calls weren’t returned.

She went to the minister of municipal relations, who responded, but didn’t answer her questions directly, Hill said.

“You can’t even go to the minister with anything because nobody gives a damn. There is no oversight over nothing. So it’s like the Wild West out there and you have no control,” she said.

Hill also believes women in municipal government — roughly 17 per cent of elected officials in Manitoba municipalities are female — are often treated more unfairly than men.

“You happen to have a lone female or two (on council)… They can put the best suggestions forward and if you have three (councillors) against two, forget it. There is nothing that is going to happen. They can stand in the corner until they’re blue and nothing is going to change,” Hill said.

In the RM of St. Andrews, where Joy Sul is the only woman on a six-person council, residents Glen and Karen McKenzie attend all the council meetings.

Glen McKenzie said Sul is being treated “quite a bit differently than the rest of the councillors around that table.”

Sul filed a human rights complaint against the RM last month, alleging discrimination, harassment, mental and verbal abuse.

“I can understand where Coun. Sul is coming from,” McKenzie said. “I’ve seen examples where a councillor goes on and on and on rambling about something… Councillor Sul starts to ask a question, and she’s immediately overspoken.”

In West St. Paul, Cheryl Christian is the only female councillor in a group of five.

West St. Paul resident Gary Galawan said he was at a council meeting in March where Christian was berated for attempting to abstain from a vote.

“I was appalled. I tried to stand up and say, ‘Hey, this is out of line. Settle down here,’ and I was told to sit down and shut up (by a member of council),” Galawan said.

“It was totally unprofessional, degrading, and if you look at the code of conduct, there’s no respect shown for any of that. And it continues. I just don’t understand how they get away with this.”

Suggestions offered by residents to improve municipalities’ states of affairs included videotaping all council and committee meetings and making those recordings available to the public.

Irwin Steen and Brian Burick, councillors in Swan Valley West, also want to see all council candidates undergo criminal record and credit checks before taking office and becoming partially responsible for a municipality’s finances.

jessica.botelho@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @_jessbu