Some municipalities want ombudsman André Marin to keep out

Behind the current veneer of cordiality at Queen’s Park there is trouble brewing. At the centre of the political maelstrom is Ombudsman Andre Marin

By: Richard J. Brennan Toronto Star Jul 07 2014

The battle lines are being drawn between municipalities and Ontario’s ombudsman.

Many municipalities can’t abide the idea of the swaggering yet publicly popular André Marin sticking his nose into their business while the take-no-prisoners Marin said it’s high time someone shone on a light on them, schools boards and universities.

And more than a few believe they are being punished for Toronto’s sins.

And that’s exactly what the majority Liberal government plans to do when it reintroduces its Accountability and Transparency Act as early as Tuesday.

Bill 179, which was introduced in March, would empower the ombudsman to investigate public complaints about municipalities, universities and school boards. It also creates a new Patient Ombudsman for complaints about hospitals and long-term care homes, and gives the existing Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth the power to investigate children’s aid societies.

The bill died when the legislature was dissolved in May for a 41-day election campaign, which resulted in the incumbent Liberals winning a 58-seat majority.

For many taxpayers or those exhausted with fighting city hall, Marin is the white knight, but folks like Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson say municipalities already have the checks needed to protect their citizen from out-of-control municipal politicians, including an election every four years.

“I don’t think it makes any sense at all to have another layer of bureaucracy dealing with municipal accountability because at the end of the day we are accountable to the people,” Watson, a former Liberal municipal affairs minister, told the Star.

“If people don’t like the job we are doing they can kick us out or they can hold our feet to the fire through committee meetings and council. I think this is one of the classic examples of a problem looking for a solution. I don’t think the problem is there,” he said.

Watson said he knows all about the highly publicized problems with Toronto Mayor Rob Ford “but to have this sort of blanket approach for all 444 municipalities because of Toronto’s bad behaviour doesn’t make any sense.”

At the head of the line to question the province’s wisdom in giving Marin’s so much power is the Association of Municipalities Ontario (AMO).

“The most significant issue is the double oversight,” AMO’s executive director Pat Vanini said, referring to other systems of check and balances already in existence.

“We don’t understand the rationale for that.”

Marin has dismissed such criticism as the usual “squawking” from municipalities and AMO in particular, saying for too long they have resisted public scrutiny, preferring instead to conduct their business behind closed doors.

“AMO is a special interest group and its job in life is to protect municipalities . . . from my perspective AMO is the fox guarding the hen house. Of course they like the status quo. The status quo means no oversight in any city in Ontario except Toronto,” Marin, who has been away on business, said in a March teleconference after the bill was introduced the same month.

Since 2008 every municipality has had the ability to set up their own ombudsman’s office and only one did — Toronto, which was required by law to do so under the City of Toronto Act. The proposed provincial bill would give Marin’s office jurisdiction over all municipalities, even Toronto.

“The ombudsman of Ontario will have the ability to investigate council members, mayors and the bureaucracy in local government across Ontario,” Marin in the previous teleconference.

Marin’s oversight over Toronto, even though it has its own ombudsman, Fiona Crean, has left more than a few people at city hall confused.

“When there are two offices of last resort, then what office actually is the office of last resort?” Councillor Josh Matlow told the Star.

“It just doesn’t make sense to me to have two different ombudsmen, especially one that reports to council and one that doesn’t,” he said.

The biggest difference between the two is that Crean cannot investigate council members where Marin could. “There are other ways to hold council to account,” Matlow insisted.

Marin maintains Ontarians have lost confidence in local governance, adding they only have to read the papers to see reports of fraud, nepotism, conflicts of interests, questionable expense claims and mayors facing criminal charges.

“I think it is an area ripe for oversight,” he said, noting that municipalities receive $3.5 billion in transfers from the province “with no strings attached . . . so we will make sure that municipalities are accountable,” he told reporters on the teleconference.

Marin and the proposed legislation do have municipal defenders, including Hamilton Mayor Bob Bratina and Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley.

“With my city on a number of files we don’t have enough openness and transparency, which leads me to look for some way of addressing these things and it seems to me that under Bill 179 . . . I could ask for investigations into things that are occurring at city hall . . . I could lodge a complaint directly,” said Bratina, who is not seeking re-election in the fall.

Bratina noted a recent ethic and values audit showed that 25 per cent of city staff self-reporting in a survey said they had been pressured to compromise their ethics and values and that less than half of staff felt they could report wrongdoing without fear of retaliation.

“All this stuff seems to go on and one seems to care about it,” he said.

Bradley said he totally supports the proposed legislation but he cautioned that the ombudsman should restrict himself to complaints of substance.

“I am supportive but I don’t believe that’s the reaction you will get from AMO,” said Bradley, who city is not a member an AMO member.

“If there is one level of government with the ability to have corruption, conflict of interests it’s the municipal level.”