As mayoral election looms, questions about accountability gap in Mississauga could be on the ballot

“An integrity commissioner is supposed to be independent, yet a significant number of code of conduct complaints (against municipal council members) come from administration and staff,” lawyer Guy Giorno, one of the most widely respected municipal integrity commissioners in Ontario, told a provincial government committee last summer, when Queen’s Park finally took action to strengthen accountability of local elected officials. “How can someone hired by management one day investigate management’s complaint against a councillor the next day? Well, it can’t.”

Giorno, who at the time worked for 20 Ontario municipalities, was speaking to the proposed Bill 9, which recently passed, highlighting many shortcomings of the integrity commissioner system meant to use a municipal code of conduct to hold council members accountable to the strict set of rules that are supposed to govern their behaviour. 

He underscored some of the fundamental problems, while voicing his support for many of the now approved set of enhanced rules under Bill 9. 

“Independence is a real issue, but it’s not the only issue. The larger problem is that there is no quality control. Nobody determines who does or does not possess the knowledge and judgment required of a municipal integrity commissioner. Most municipalities, Toronto and Ottawa excepted, choose integrity commissioners by RFP, the same way they pick a contractor to fix a road. They ask typical RFP questions, such as, ‘Do you have insurance? How much is your insurance? What’s your work plan? How much will it cost?’ Very few select an individual whose judgment they can trust to be the council’s ethical adviser. In most cases, municipal councils have no idea whether the people being chosen are suitable to provide ethical guidance.”

Choosing the right integrity commissioner is a task now facing Mississauga’s Council.

After learning the small law firm that has looked after the city’s integrity commissioner role will no longer be handling such work, the municipality launched an application process to find a new council watchdog ahead of the municipal election this October.

The typical four-year term could be replaced by a two-year contract, Councillor Alvin Tedjo suggested. He addressed the hiring of the new integrity commissioner, raising “concerns” about issues Mississauga council members have had with past commissioners.

He suggested a two-year term, then council could evaluate the performance “mid-cycle”, before signing another two-year term.

Mississauga Councillor Alvin Tedjo, who is running for mayor, suggested a two-year term for the next integrity commissioner with the option to sign them to multiple two-year contracts afterward, if council members are happy with the performance.

(Alexis Wright/The Pointer)

Mayor Carolyn Parrish and other council members questioned the idea at the May 20 meeting, when the matter was discussed. Staff told Tedjo that a two-year contract could turn potential candidates off. Parrish agreed.

“We’ve been through a couple of these at (Peel Region) and it’s really hard to attract top notch people; and a city our size needs the best we can get,” she said.

“I’m just concerned, I think if we want to get the best people we should be able to put out a RFP that's attractive to someone, and I think they like to make four-year commitments.”

Parrish, who won the mayor’s job in a 2024 byelection after Bonnie Crombie had stepped down to take over the Ontario Liberal Party, will face tough competition once again from her two main challengers in that race. Councillor Tedjo, who came a close second, is running in this year’s municipal election; and so is Councillor Dipika Damerla, who finished close behind him two years ago. All three have already registered as candidates in the city’s mayoral contest. 

Damerla has made better accountability inside City Hall an issue.   

The Ward 7 Councillor questioned if the two-year integrity commissioner term proposed by Tedjo would allow the council watchdog to remain fully independent and outside council’s shadow.

“Part of an integrity commissioner, as any other officer, is the independence, and I just wonder if you hire someone for two years, and the full term of 4 years… is contingent on if council is happy with them.” She suggested a two-year term would give the integrity commissioner the impression they are on a probationary period, and only if they did what a majority of council members wanted them to do, would they be hired back again.

It is the same fundamental flaw Giorno addressed at the provincial committee last summer, when he questioned how an integrity commissioner could hold accountable the very people who hire and fire the watchdog responsible for keeping them in line. 

Damerla said the City will send out an open request, hoping to attract good candidates.

She wants “to see somebody who has experience in municipal law. And ideally somebody who has done this kind of work before. Someone who has been an integrity commissioner at other municipal government levels.”

Four years ago, council members were divided when the integrity commissioner at the time, Robert Swayze, who stepped down in 2023, badly mishandled a case involving the harassment of one female councillor, Karen Ras, by one of her male colleagues on council at the time (he is no longer a member). Ras eventually resigned in 2022.

As outlined on the City’s website, the integrity commissioner is an independent officer authorized under provincial law to investigate complaints against council members, train and educate them, enforce the code of conduct that governs them, and provide conflict of interest advice to members of council and local boards.

The search for a new integrity commissioner comes after Damerla pushed her council colleagues to hire an independent auditor general. She brought a motion forward in March, outlining her concerns about spending and the lack of controls to ensure effective, responsible use of taxpayer dollars. Mississauga’s local elected officials have been criticized for passing budgets that include excessive salaries and benefits for senior staff, other non-union employees and contracts to consultants, while critical funding for flood mitigation, fire services and other vital municipal services have fallen behind.

Damerla emphasized the benefits an independent auditor could bring to the city, to ease residents' minds and ensure their tax dollars are properly allocated to the services and infrastructure that matter most to them.

“I think that transparency is at the heart of building trust with our residents. Generally there is a sense amongst taxpayers at all levels of government, but especially at the municipal level, where people really feel their taxes are going up and they don't understand why. We really need to be transparent with residents (and show) how their money is being spent,” Damerla said.

Despite her concerns and the encouragement of provincial officials in the past, who have advised large municipalities to hire an independent auditor general to protect taxpayers from abuse and mismanagement, Damerla’s motion was shot down by Parrish and others around the council table.

Councillor Dipika Damerla, who is running for mayor, tried to hire an independent auditor general in Mississauga but her motion was defeated by her council colleagues.

(Alexis Wright/The Pointer files)

When Giorno spoke before provincial legislators as they gathered information to inform the now passed Bill 9, he did not pull his punches regarding the pitfalls municipalities face if they do not hire the right professionals to do critical accountability work. 

“A few years ago, Thunder Bay hired an integrity commissioner with a background in investigating but not legal interpretation. The commissioner conducted an inquiry and said a councillor was in a conflict of interest (one of the key problems local elected officials are obligated to stay clear of when they vote on multi-million-dollar contracts, large lucrative development projects and numerous other matters that can potentially involve favouritism or influence). The city then hired a legal expert to review the integrity commissioner’s work. The expert concluded that the commissioner got the law wrong, so the matter went back to the commissioner to do over. Thunder Bay ended up paying three times, for the commissioner to investigate, for the lawyer to explain that the commissioner got it wrong, and for the commissioner to do it again. This is not an isolated case. Many municipalities pay for integrity commissioners then end up paying for lawyers to explain the law to integrity commissioners, because they didn’t pick an integrity commissioner who understood the law in the first place.”

Staff highlighted in a report to Council that, “Historically Council has appointed its Integrity Commissioner (IC) with terms set to expire in June of the last year of the Council term, so that the outgoing Council can set the mandate of the IC and ensure that an IC is appointed and in place before the incoming Council takes office which aligns with the current timelines.”

The new integrity commissioner will be in place by early next year, once the next slate of council members are sworn in, weeks after the municipal election in late October. 

Once again, council members will hire the person responsible for enforcing the rules that govern them, and they will be able to fire the integrity commissioner if they are not happy with the way they are held accountable.  

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