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Yes. There is indeed a better way to investigate a Public Code of Conduct

By
In Council Watch
Mar 7th, 2021
2 Comments
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The following is a letter from Paul Sanderson sent March 3 2021 to Oro-Medonte Township Council

Clerk Aubichon,

Please accept my Proposal letter below as formal correspondence to be received and posted to the public record, preferably on the next agenda to be read and adopted well prior to expending staff time and a future agenda. Please let me know the status of this request. Thank you in advance.

HR Obee & Complainants,

Please scrum asap to exchange evidence and Ms. Obee can contact the MoL to request a formal investigation. Please update me when the process has started.

Should there be reticence concerning bringing in MoL Workplace investigators, my firm represented a client during an Employment Standards Audit (Workplace Safety Audit) by an MoL ESO in 2019-2020 and I am able to initiate the request of the investigation myself if that would help out. Thank you in advance.

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                                PROPOSAL REQUEST

Yes, there is indeed a better way than the Public Code of Conduct as put forth in C Keane’s motion on Dec 9, 2020, seconded by C DeSousa.

Initially, C Keane introduced the motion as a workplace safety initiative and then C Keane used a plug number of 10 individuals/”perpetrators” to illustrate the immense costs for staff to deal with what was referred to as ‘disrespectful’ communications. It is still unknown whether there are 0, 1, 10 or a 100 individuals who are purported to send harassing correspondence.

In a civil society, an action to follow up on previous unanswered correspondence is NOT harassment. Such behaviour is in fact good business practice consistent with operating a tight organization.

A Public Code of Conduct is certainly a problematic way to engage the public in this age of heightened free speech and social media. The exclusion of residents from the public debate in any way, shape or form is completely unacceptable.

Interestingly, neither C Keane nor C DeSousa presented any facts or evidence to back up their claims. Their motion was based totally on hearsay, conjecture, speculation and was not based on any provided factual evidence. Some on Council may call this a fairy tale.

It is also interesting to note Council, by entertaining and passing this motion, has usurped the authority of workplace safety management from the OM CAO and OM HR (Human Resources), who previously had statutory reign over workplace safety.

This issue at hand is a Ministry of Labour, MoL, matter and should be managed by MoL in concert with the CAO and HR at OM, not by Council intervention.

The Ontario Ministry of Labour, under Minister McNaughton, looks after workplace safety and environment via the MoL force of Employment Standards Officers who administer and enforce several workplace specific statues including The Employment Standards Act. The Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) is included. Matters involving the Canadian Charter and the Ontario Human Rights Code can also be addressed.

Employment Standards Officers, ESOs, are badged and sworn individuals as designated Provincial Offences Officers under the Public Service of Ontario Act, 2006. Taxpayers have already paid for this service to be available. Similar to an insurance policy, fees are paid as taxes in order to avail of the Ministry’s service when required. The Ministry’s service is now required.

The addition of 50+ ESOs to inspect & enforce Covid-19 restrictive practices in the manufacturing, essential retail and big-box store workplaces has NOT reduced the effectiveness of more ‘regular’ non-Covid-19 workplace administration and enforcement. The ESOs continue to protect the public interest and employ integrity in enforcement.

The Ministry of Labour inspectors, local police and bylaw enforcement officers are enabled to issue tickets and Occupation and Safety orders.

Ministry of Labour E-mail: esdocuments@ontario.ca
Ministry Website: www.ontario.ca/labour
Employment Standards Information Centre: 1-800-531-5551

The Keane motion does not in any way address the actual or root cause of the alleged ‘problem’, if there really is an issue, which has not been supported by any factual evidence, only hearsay, verbal gossip and second hand accounts.

When asked by residents, several Councilors responded as to having never received any disrespectful correspondence from an individual in OM.

Perhaps the root cause is internal to OM and low or non-existent standards and requirements to respond to inquiries. Or other root causes, i.e. leadership, direction, training, could be at play. Repeated and pointed unanswered questions from ratepayers can be indicative of a systemic communications problem within OM.

From the above sit rep synopsis, there are quite probably other solutions to more effectively address the alleged issue. Any other proposal to be valid would require merit when compared to the current direction given by Council.

A more reasonable, effective, economical and constructive approach would be to consider and implement the following proposal.

Additional regulation is not necessary as existing taxpayer funded investigation and enforcement services already exist. There is no merit in duplicating resources when the primary solution has not yet been considered and acted upon, i.e. the Ontario Ministry of Labour.

My proposal utilizes existing taxpayer funded services that inspect and protect workplace safety without incremental costs to ratepayers. OM has already expended the good parts of two meetings to over complicate the issue with no resolution.

A secondary motion to reconsider the original Keane motion was tabled at the Jan 13, 2021 Council meeting. The motion to reconsider morphed into the resulting involvement of Staff to write a report on legislative compliance by OM and does not align with the original motion of managing ‘needless work’ for staff.

Staff are not trained nor skilled in investigations and gathering evidence and should NOT be burdened by this unnecessary activity which is well out side of their training, expertise and realm.

My proposal includes having Staff stand down on Council’s direction and leave the allegations in the hands of the professionals.

On the other hand, Labour Ministry ESOs are trained to interview persons, collect evidence, investigate and to file charges if warranted.

The Introduction of a Proposal to recall and the stay of existing motions, C210113-14, and to proceed as:

1. Claimants proceed with their evidence of harassment asap to either OM HR for them to contact the Ministry or the claimant(s) proceed directly to contact the Ministry of Labour as noted above and request to have a fulsome investigation into allegations of a harassing and non-safe work place by an independent arms-length third party, the Ontario Ministry of Labour.

#1 Aligns to Safe Workplace of original motion and will identify the true issue and root cause as to any needs for public behaviour management. A normal course process to address these types of matters.

2. OM Staff is to stand down on any further actions relating to the allegations including legislative compliance report preparation and a third party search at least until the Ministry of Labour completes their investigation of the allegations.

#2 Aligns to removing needless burdens to Staff of the original motion. The Proposal will not eat up any staff time. It does save OM money as staff time can be redeployed to add value to projects specific to their portfolio and responding to various inquiries.

I am formally requesting OM Council to consider this proposal post haste at a Special Council Meeting. This approach will offer a safe workplace and support Staff by removing needless work burden and stress.

This action will further adopt an open disclosure policy of evidence and facts as investigated by professional independent arms length third party Enforcement Officers. It is unnecessary for Staff to expend time searching for an independent party. A better way is to utilize professional arms length third party investigators already available through the province.

The original motion, C210113-14 should not have come to Council in the first place, it should have been dealt with internally first through the HR department and then to the Ministry of Labour for resolution.

We have equal justice under law now…let’s use it…

The following response was received March 5 2021 from Township Clerk Yvonne Aubichon

Thank you for your interest regarding this item. This matter has already been actioned as per Council direction. Please note your correspondence will be filed as part of the record, but will not appear on a Council agenda.

2 Responses to “Yes. There is indeed a better way to investigate a Public Code of Conduct”

  1. Holly Levinter says:

    This is a most a reasonable letter to Council considering all previous objections and solutions to the so called ruling have been ignored. Evidence has not been supplied as to the allegations but Council is jumping on this issue to appear to be doing something important. This item has received countless comments and letters that have all been dismissed. The residents of Oro-Medonte are frustrated, angered and fed up with baseless accusations and the way they are treated by this current council that appears to think no regulations apply to them. There must be some control over this Council, its endless spending, and unnecessary by-laws.
    Let’s clean up the by-laws of Oro-medonte. Let’s make them relevant and get rid of ones that no longer apply. If all the bylaws were reviewed from the very beginning, there would be many that are unknown or not followed, particularly by the members of this Council.

  2. allan says:

    Once again the brilliance at Oro-Medonte is blinding. Leonard Cohen wrote, “Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in”. A perfectly logical offering here and obviously a crack on Line 7 – but the light just isn’t getting in.

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