Municipal integrity commissioners are expected to impartially review and investigate complaints calling into question the ethical conduct of public officials in municipal governments. However, in most cases it is municipal councils—not integrity commissioners—that have the final say on whether and how a councillor is sanctioned for breaches of a municipality’s code of conduct. Normally, integrity commissioners report back to municipal councils and recommend an appropriate sanction.
Unsurprisingly, integrity commissioners are sometimes asked to investigate explosive complaints concerning well-known political figures. In such circumstances, are municipal councillors—those who must decide the sanction—expected to stay impartial while serious allegations capture the public interest? Can we expect the integrity commissioner to remain impartial if the council they report to is itself biased? Those were two of the important questions raised in the Divisional Court’s recent decision in Chiarelli v Ottawa, 2021 ONSC 8256, a tale of inappropriate conduct, investigative challenges, and allegations of bias.
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