By Stephen Vance, Staff
Beginning in the new year, Meaford will have a new investigator for closed meetings should a concern ever arise.
In October, council voted in favour of discontinuing their use of Local Authority Services Ltd., or LAS, and will instead draw upon the Ontario Ombudsman should an investigation request be submitted.
“The Municipal Act requires that all meetings of Council be open to the public with a few discretionary exceptions. It also provides that a person can request an investigation into a closed session and whether it was called and carried out in conformity with the Act and the Municipality’s Procedural By-law,” municipal Clerk Rob Tremblay told council in a report.
Meaford has had LAS as the appointed closed meeting investigation service since 2007. LAS is a subsidiary of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO).
The Ontario Ombudsman is the default investigator for municipalities who don’t opt for alternative services like LAS, and the Ombudsman’s office has been the provider of this service to roughly 205 of Ontario’s 444 municipalities.
While the municipality has had its share of complaints over the years, Tremblay noted that Meaford has never received a request for a closed meeting investigation, and he suggested that the $125 investigation fee has been a deterrent to people lodging complaints, and that fee will be eliminated with the move to appoint the Ombudsman for investigation services.
LAS also charges the municipality an annual retainer fee of $330, and should an investigation occur, they charge a set fee of $225 per hour. There are no costs to the municipality for the Ontario Ombudsman to provide the service.
“The Ontario Ombudsman will have the power to investigate and resolve complaints about municipalities pursuant to Bill 8 beginning January 1, 2016. Given these expanded powers, moving to the Ontario Ombudsman for closed meeting investigations is timely and cost-effective given the costs associated with LAS. The Ontario Ombudsman will also be able to deal effectively with frivolous and vexatious requests, choosing not to investigate where warranted,” Tremblay told council.
