Pickering councillor faces new penalty, probe amid escalating conflict with city

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/01/2025 (448 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The mayor for a southern Ontario city says a councillor is facing a second consecutive 90-day pay suspension and allegations against her have been referred to police, after he announced the municipal council would move its meetings online over alleged threats from her supporters.

The conflict in Pickering began more than a year ago over complaints about Coun. Lisa Robinson’s social media posts, which the integrity commissioner described as “unacceptable” and potentially harmful to marginalized communities.

The escalating back-and-forth that has followed — including Robinson’s repeated appearances on right-wing media platforms and the city’s own lengthy video posted online earlier this week — has come to engulf local politics in the city east of Toronto.

Mayor Kevin Ashe said in an interview Friday that the integrity commissioner brought police a complaint that Robinson may be aiding and abetting criminal harassment with her participation in “far-right” media.

The commissioner’s office said in an email that it has suspended its own inquiry into the complaint “until any resulting police investigation, and if laid any resulting charge, has been finally disposed of.”

The Durham Regional Police Service said it is “aware of these issues” and the investigation has been turned over to Ontario Provincial Police. OPP did not immediately respond to questions.

Robinson, who was elected in 2022, has previously denied allegations against her. She could not be reached for comment on Friday.

Ashe alleged that Robinson’s supporters have been trespassing and piping up with “overblown rhetoric” at city council meetings. He said the city has had to double the police presence at the council chamber and pay for private security at recent in-person meetings, from which council members have had to be escorted to their cars.

Council meetings were already due to be held online later this year because of renovations in the chamber, he said, but city officials decided to move online sooner.

“When people don’t feel safe coming to their council chamber … and when people don’t follow the code of conduct, that diminishes democracy,” he said.

“I never thought we’d be here, but we are.”

In a video posted by the city this week, Ashe said the decision to stop holding council meetings in person was “not made lightly.”

The heavily produced video is 13 minutes long. It features clips from Robinson’s appearance on a right-wing podcast in which host Kevin J. Johnson calls Pickering city councillors “pedophiles” and “Nazis,” saying they “deserve a baseball bat to the face.” Robinson has previously denounced the host’s comments and apologized to her colleagues.

To a backdrop of dramatic music, the video also includes threatening voicemails council members received from unidentified callers, and its unnamed narrator alleges that Robinson held an unsanctioned town hall meeting in September that banned city staff, featured “alt-right materials” and was run by “outsiders with unknown intentions.”

Ashe said the video was created in-house by the city’s communications department, at no extra cost to taxpayers. He added they decided to produce it after the last in-person meeting on Dec. 16, at which Robinson’s five fellow councillors approved her latest pay suspension over public comments accusing the city’s chief administrative officer of corruption.

“We made a determination that we wanted to respond to the false allegations of corruption,” said Ashe.

In a social media post on Thursday, Robinson accused the mayor and the city of “resorting to bullying tactics,” calling the video “absolutely pathetic” and “laughable propaganda.”

Robinson’s December pay suspension marked the fourth time Robinson has been handed a penalty for breaching the code of conduct, including for comments criticizing Black History Month, LGBTQ+ advocacy and city officials.

She received 30-day and 60-day pay suspensions on separate occasions in 2023, reacting to the first by calling herself a “modern day slave.” Her first 90-day pay suspension — the harshest possible penalty under current rules — came in September.

Ashe said the city has spent more than $100,000 on integrity commissioner fees, added security and legal costs related to Robinson. He said he and other council members have been petitioning the provincial government to pass a bill that would allow the removal of a councillor from office under the Municipal Act.

The bill Municipal Affairs Minister Paul Calandra introduced last month would allow for the creation of a standard code of conduct for all municipalities, and penalties of removing and disqualifying a member of office if they are in serious violation of the code.

The government has said that removal and disqualification could only happen if the municipal integrity commissioner recommends it, if Ontario’s integrity commissioner agrees and if councillors except for the member in question unanimously agree to it in a vote.

Ashe said he’s “thankful” that the government is taking action.

But even if the bill passes and becomes law, it wouldn’t come into effect in Pickering until the city’s next election in October 2026, the mayor said.

Robinson told The Canadian Press last September that “if the constituents don’t like what I have to say or how I’m representing them, then the decision will be up to them during the next election.”

Ashe nicknamed her “Double Down Lisa” on Friday.

“Never in my wildest dreams would I think the councillor who would be sanctioned on four different occasions for 15 breaches of code would not show any level of remorse, regret, or even some looking in the mirror and saying, ‘Maybe I’m the problem.'”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 3, 2025.