Ottawa Citizen

We still can't fire a city councillor for sexual misconduct in Ontario

Five years after the `Rick Chiarelli' affair, law hasn't changed, says Joanne Chianello.

It was five years ago this week that Ottawa heard the first public allegation of sexual harassment against then-city councillor Rick Chiarelli. A job applicant, who came to be known as Laura G, told me the veteran politician had asked her if she'd be comfortabl­e going to work events braless; showed her cellphone photos of women in revealing outfits; and described a bizarre volunteer-recruitmen­t scheme that involved Chiarelli staffers going to bars to hit on men.

While Laura G may have been the first to speak up against the longtime College ward councillor, she was far from the last. Through the fall of 2019, more allegation­s poured in. Many were investigat­ed and reported, including that Chiarelli brought female staffers to strip clubs as part of their work, gave them flimsy see-through tops to wear, talked about their bodies and asked a young job applicant if she'd ever considered being a stripper.

The latest allegation came in 2022, when one former staffer said the councillor had pressured her to perform oral sex on a stranger for cash.

Chiarelli has always vehemently denied the allegation­s. Still, the current and former city integrity commission­ers, between them, investigat­ed six formal complaints and produced three damning reports. They interviewe­d three dozen witnesses. One of the reports included a 283-page appendix of corroborat­ing emails, texts and photos. Chiarelli was found to have “continuall­y exploited the power dynamic of the employer/employee relationsh­ip” and committed “incomprehe­nsible incidents of harassment.”

The consequenc­es? Chiarelli had his pay docked for 540 days – 90 days for each of the six complaints, the harshest penalty allowed under the law. But his position as a city councillor remained largely unchanged.

Losing a paycheque for a yearand-a-half isn't nothing, but for many, it wasn't enough. Not for residents who called and wrote to their councillor­s' offices and media outlets, not for the council members themselves, and certainly not for the women who came forward to tell their stories.

When financial rules are broken, there can be serious repercussi­ons. A Toronto councillor lost his seat in 2020 for overspendi­ng on a victory party. Sexually harass and psychologi­cally abuse multiple women over many years? You get to keep your job. There is no way to “fire” an elected official for grievous misconduct. Only voters can do that in the next election.

Chiarelli is, sadly, not the only case of harassing behaviour by a local politician: see egregious examples in Brampton, Barrie, Mississaug­a and Pickering — but he is the case that first spurred multiple calls for action to strengthen the laws governing conduct of elected municipal officials.

And yet, five years on, the province has done nothing.

It's not for lack of effort or advocacy. Ottawa council formally called for the legislativ­e changes after the 2020 shocking report on Chiarelli. Former female staffers of the councillor launched petitions — and pressed lawmakers — to strengthen the law.

In 2021 and again in 2023, the board of the Associatio­n of Municipali­ties of Ontario advocated for stricter conduct measures, including increasing­ly punitive financial sanctions, temporary suspension without pay and, in the cases of the most serious misconduct, an independen­t mechanism overseen by a judge to remove a council member from office.

Spurred by tireless volunteer work from the organizati­on The Women of Ontario Say No, more than 200 municipal councils representi­ng the vast majority of Ontario's population have passed motions calling for the province to allow harsher penalties for abusive elected officials.

Orléans MPP Stephen Blais, who once sat at the Ottawa council table with Chiarelli, fought three times for a private member's bill that proposed a clear process for a judge to remove a councillor from office. Each bid by the Liberal MPP was eventually shot down, or allowed to die in the legislatur­e, by the Progressiv­e Conservati­ve government. In one instance, PC MPP Charmaine Williams falsely said the bill proposed “to make integrity commission­ers more powerful than an appointed judge.”

The province was widely expected to take action in the fall of 2021, when Steve Clark was still the minister in charge of municipali­ties, but the anticipate­d bill never materializ­ed.

Clark's successor, Paul Calandra, has voiced concerns about the constituti­onality of this sort of legislatio­n and fair enough: booting someone who's been duly elected out of office should be exceedingl­y rare and handled with extreme caution. Still, earlier this year, Calandra promised he would “absolutely” bring forward legislatio­n

But no new government bill seems imminent. Why not? After all, virtually everyone seems to favour beefed-up conduct rules.

Everyone, that is, except Premier Doug Ford.

Back in March, the premier made it very clear to Ottawa reporters that he wasn't in favour of removing anyone from office outside of elections — even as Calandra was pledging to act. Ford told us that “every city has their integrity commission­er and they have the powers to do what they need to do if someone misbehaves, if you want to call it that.”

A Toronto councillor lost his seat in 2020 for overspendi­ng on a victory party.

“Misbehaves?” No, Premier, that's not the word anyone wants to use for this sort of conduct — certainly not the women targeted by Chiarelli. And clearly, the powers of integrity commission­ers fall short of what municipal councils are demanding: tougher laws that include a mechanism for removal.

Thankfully, the pressure seems to have got through to Ford. Last June, apparently after a conversati­on with Calandra, he asked Ontario integrity commission­er J. David Wake to weigh in on how to handle the file.

This move delays action yet again. Still, Wake's input can't hurt. He's a former Associate Chief Justice of Ontario and has been the province's integrity czar for eight years. He will no doubt have important insights.

But whatever Wake comes up with, the ultimate sanction must be the removal of councillor­s found to have committed serious misconduct. Anything less would amount to a betrayal of Laura G and all those others who had the courage to begin coming forward five years ago.