City’s integrity watchdog will get some ammunition — finally

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This article was published 02/12/2015 (3975 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After nearly a decade of lobbying and pleading by the city, the NDP government will finally introduce legislative changes to give Winnipeg’s new integrity watchdog some much-needed teeth.

Government house leader Dave Chomiak, who is also the minister of mineral resources, said in an interview his government will introduce changes to the City of Winnipeg Act or the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act — or both — to ensure the city’s new integrity commissioner has full powers to investigate ethical transgressions.

The changes will include new penalties for public servants who breach ethical guidelines, Chomiak said. “The stars have been aligned so that we were able to do something now,” Chomiak said.

Those stars include the appointment Wednesday of Jeffrey Schnoor, a former deputy justice minister, as the province’s new conflict-of-interest commissioner, and a pledge to modernize ethics laws to ensure they are meeting current standards. “Our law is old. Some of our stuff is not very flexible or open… It’s a good time for change.”

The decision by the province to finally move on legislative amendments will come as a great relief to many at city hall. Particularly those who lobbied throughout the Sam Katz years for a more modern, comprehensive and effective regime to investigate and punish public servants for ethical breaches.

Over his years in office, Katz was found to have voted on matters involving current or former business associates, lobbied to get longtime friend Phil Sheegl hired as planning director, and spent $3,000 in public funds at a restaurant he co-owned. That last incident triggered a lawsuit that came dangerously close to a judgment that might have cost him his job.

A Queen’s Bench court judge initially said despite the fact Katz had demonstrated “bad political behaviour,” the only punishment available for the crime — throwing him out of office and triggering an election — was too harsh for the magnitude of the transgression. In the end, an Appeal Court also refused to convict him, saying there was no evidence he directed staff to hold the party at his restaurant. So Katz won, but it was pretty clear a weak and vague law had been his saving grace.

It was those incidents that prompted Katz’s successor, Mayor Brian Bowman, to create the office of integrity commissioner. A formal proposal to establish that office went before executive policy committee Wednesday and will go to council for a final vote next week.

Bowman should get more than a little credit for prompting the province to act. For the past eight years, the city and province have sparred over which level of government was best suited to enforce ethics. The city argued it needed legal powers that could only come from an act of the provincial legislature; the province disagreed, and told the city to work within the current legislative context.

The source of the province’s reluctance on this file was never fully revealed. Many speculated Premier Greg Selinger was not eager to bring in new ethics laws in case it was seen as an affront to former mayor Katz, who was the central figure in a host of ethical scandals.

The city’s decision to create its own ethics watchdog once again put the province in the position of having to justify a lack of action to put real power and authority behind the civic commissioner. Thankfully, the province has decided instead to act.

Chomiak’s revelation shows the city, for what it’s worth, was really right all along. That is not to diminish what the province is doing; only that it is somewhat ironic for the NDP to move now on something it soundly dismissed for so many years.

Of course, everyone should wait until the NDP unveils the legislative changes before engaging in a robust end-zone dance. The issue that will come before the provincial legislature is complex and the potential solutions varied.

All we know for sure is the current situation is untenable. Right now, the only law governing the ethical behaviour of local government officials — both elected and bureaucratic — is the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, a sham of a mockery of a joke of provincial law. It is outdated, vague and completely ineffective given it identifies no one to investigate allegations of ethical transgression.

That left members of the public, and elected officials, unsure where to take their concerns about serious ethical matters.

Chomiak said the legislative changes will most definitely give Winnipeg’s new integrity commissioner the power to investigate allegations. He was not entirely specific about what this means, but city officials have been asking for full legal authority to compel evidence and testimony.

There will also be a wider range of penalties for ethical breaches, Chomiak said. Again, although he could not identify specifics, he said the amendments would mark a dramatic improvement from the current legislative framework. A full consultation with the city will be conducted before any legislative amendments are introduced.

It is not enough to say these changes, which are some ways off still, have been a long time in coming. There really hasn’t been a good excuse for the province’s stalling.

That having been said, these are changes that will make for better government in Manitoba. And for that, we should still summon some polite applause.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca