Work on bill to address municipal politician harassment ‘complex,’ minister says

Open this photo in gallery:

Ontario is drafting a bill to address harassment by municipal politicians, but the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing said Friday it is proving to be more complex than he thought so it won’t be tabled by his self-imposed June deadline.

Paul Calandra said he is reaching out to Ontario’s Integrity Commissioner for recommendations and hopes to be able to consult on it with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and bring a proposal to their August conference.

“Even the regime surrounding the integrity acts throughout municipalities across the province of Ontario, each of them operates in a different fashion,” Mr. Calandra said when asked about the issue at an unrelated news conference in Ottawa.

“There is a lot more work to do on this because the more I look into it, the more disjointed and fragmented the process is and I want to make sure that whatever we do, it is effective, it meets the goals that we’re trying to accomplish.”

The Progressive Conservatives voted down a Liberal private member’s bill on the subject, but Mr. Calandra later said the government would table its own legislation.

The Liberal bill from Stephen Blais would have allowed councillors and members of local boards to be fired for violating workplace violence or harassment policies, and could have prevented them from running for re-election.

A non-partisan group dubbed Women of Ontario Say No has been advocating for the legislation, saying some municipalities have learned the hard way that there are not enough tools to hold politicians accountable for workplace harassment.

“The premise is simple: You should go to work and you should not be subjected to abuse,” group member Emily McIntosh said at a news conference earlier this year.

“We are asking municipally elected representatives to be held to the very same standard as every other working Ontarian.”