Lisa Southern, Integrity Commissioner for the City of Vancouver.City of Vancouver
The City of Vancouver’s integrity commissioner has released two reports that detail a troubling work environment in the mayor’s office, just days before city councillors are expected to suspend the work of her office.
Commissioner Lisa Southern did not find that Mayor Ken Sim had violated the city’s code of conduct by trying to press a Park Board commissioner who broke with his ABC party when the mayor tried to get rid of the board, saying Mr. Sim was acting in his role as party leader, not as mayor.
ABC is the civic political party that currently dominates city hall in Vancouver.
But Ms. Southern’s report outlines various steps that two people in the mayor’s office, including chief of staff Trevor Ford, took to discredit Park Board commissioner Brennan Bastyovanszky.
Mr. Ford said Sunday that lawyers acting for the mayor’s office had tried to ensure the reports were not released because, he said, they contain assertions that are in dispute.
Vancouver city council suspends work of integrity commissioner
Councillors are holding an unprecedented August special meeting on Tuesday to pass a bylaw to suspend the work of the integrity commissioner, a move that will halt any public reports about investigations under way. Councillors with ABC say the suspension is necessary because of comments the commissioner made in her annual report last December, noting that the role of the office is “not always clear.”
Critics have argued, however, that there is no need to suspend the work of the office while a review of the scope of her mandate is under way.
In the reports released Sunday, Ms. Southern noted her office doesn’t have jurisdiction over political staff, only regular city employees and elected council members, so she did not rule on whether Mr. Ford and another colleague had violated the code by circulating allegations about Mr. Bastyovanszky to the ABC team, urging them not to let him be chosen as Park Board chair.
Ms. Southern noted that Mr. Ford had made several allegations to others in the ABC party that Mr. Bastyovanszky was under investigation by the integrity commission. Documents obtained by Mr. Bastyovanszky through Freedom of Information indicated that Mr. Ford had taken an active role in shaping a complaint from a city employee at the Pacific National Exhibition that claimed Mr. Bastyovanszky had engaged in bullying and harassment.
But Ms. Southern said she had sent Mr. Ford an e-mail confirming that there was no investigation.
The integrity commissioner’s second report Sunday dismissed complaints from Mr. Ford and another colleague that they had been secretly recorded in a conversation with another Park Board commissioner. She said it’s not illegal to record if one party on the call knows about it.
Mr. Ford said in an interview on Saturday that lawyers acting for the mayor’s office team tried to convince Ms. Southern not to release the reports publicly, even though they have been circulating among the concerned parties since Friday morning.
Mr. Ford said some of Ms. Southern’s assertions about him are wrong and need to be corrected.
“Clearly, she comes out pretty hard against me,” said Mr. Ford, who talked at length about the huge emotional and financial toll the process had taken on him and others in the office, saying he personally had had to cover $25,000 in legal fees. “There’s a lot of painting a picture without the facts.”
He acknowledged that some of the behind-the-scenes tussling that she describes can look unpleasant, but said it’s not a breach of ethics.
“The sausage gets made in an unflattering way. That’s politics.”
Ms. Southern’s reports are prompting outrage among opposition councillors, who claim that ABC has been trying to shut down the integrity commission because it was trying to suppress her documentation of bad behaviour.
The move “is an act of suppression,” said Green Party Councillor Pete Fry. “It becomes pretty obvious that some of the behaviour of the mayor’s office is inappropriate.”
The fallout from the reports also raises questions about how B.C.’s recently created municipal codes of conduct are working, since many efforts to investigate or reprimand politicians for supposed breaches devolve into bitter fights where those accused say the whole process has been politicized. Surrey’s former mayor also suspended the work of the city’s ethics commissioner, while councillors in cities without third-party commissions – Maple Ridge among them – have said that the codes are giving councils the power of both judge and jury as they decide on facts and penalties related to people who are their political opposition.
ABC councillors and the Vancouver mayor insist that it was the commissioner who suggested the office’s mandate needed to be reviewed.
In a response to the reports’ findings, Mr. Sim reiterated that.
“While the recent complaints have been dismissed, this situation only further highlights the need for a scope review, particularly regarding political activities and policy decisions, as the Integrity Commissioner herself recommended. By hitting pause and bringing in an independent expert to take a fresh look, we’re making sure the Integrity Commissioner’s office runs with clearer, more effective guidelines.”
But Ms. Southern’s annual report last December only called for better wording in the mandate so that people understood that normal political activity is not covered by the code.
Her report documents a clear tension between herself and the mayor’s office over the investigation.
In it, she writes that the mayor originally refused to provide answers because he felt she had made five major errors, including improperly expanding her investigation beyond what was in the original complaint and investigating incidents outside the code of conduct bylaw.
In response, Ms. Southern laid out the legal authorities she had to conduct the investigation as she did.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that New Westminster does not have a a third-party commissioner. The city appointed an ethics commissioner in June.