With his ten-year term as Ontario’s Ombudsman coming to an end, Paul Dubé’s office has released ten open meeting investigation reports in March 2026.
I took a read through all of them, and there was one novel case: a mass walkout of council members in Simcoe County that raises an intriguing procedural question. When the council members walked out and waited for a quorum countdown that would cancel the meeting, did those absent members gathered in a nearby room constitute a quorum amongst themselves?
Here is how the Ombudsman report describes the situation:
Council for the County met on March 25, 2025 at 9 a.m. in chambers. At 9:06 a.m., council received the draft by-law proposing to change the composition of council. Extensive debate amongst members followed. An amendment that the draft by-law be referred back to staff to repeal the weighted-vote system was defeated on a weighted vote. At 10:41 a.m., after a member’s motion to suspend the rules of procedure, council took a 10-minute recess.
At 10:59 a.m., the Warden noted that council no longer had quorum and, in accordance with the County’s procedure by-law, the meeting would adjourn within 15 minutes should quorum not be achieved. At that time, only 15 members of council’s 32 members were present in chambers. At 11:17 a.m., the Warden confirmed that quorum was lost and the meeting was adjourned. A Committee of the Whole meeting began at 11:20 a.m., immediately after the adjournment. All 17 members of council who had been absent following the recess returned to chambers at that time.
The issue to be resolved: did the 17 council members who walked out engage in a collective decision as a group?
One member of council, who was not amongst those who left chambers during the recess, told my Office that it was difficult to believe that the other 17 members all independently reached a decision not to return without some sort of understanding amongst themselves. However, the members of council we spoke with who were amongst those who did not return to chambers after the recess told my Office that they arrived at the meeting with an open mind and that they independently decided not to return to the meeting following the recess. My Office was also told by these members that they had not agreed on this course of action at once or sequentially.
Ombudsman Dubé has not adopted the view of the previous Ombudsman that a series of non-quorum discussions among members can become a “serial” meeting with quorum based solely upon the outcome. He seeks difficult to find proof of a “serial” meeting.
This is critical to Dubé’s decision that there was not a closed meeting violation in Simcoe County.
The members of council we spoke with who left chambers during the recess indicated that they did not hold discussions with a quorum of council present. We were told that members were alone or in small groups in different rooms during the recess and that some were outside the area adjacent to chambers entirely (i.e., outside or in the public area). We were also told that nothing was decided or materially advanced during that time.
Both the Warden and the Clerk told my Office that, when they realized that members of council were not returning to chambers, they went, separately, to the area adjacent to chambers to speak with the members of council who had not returned to the meeting. Both the Warden and the Clerk indicated that, from their perspective, members were in different groups throughout the area and were not discussing all together.
This information led to the conclusion:
My Office’s review revealed no evidence that the 17 members who did not return to chambers discussed any matters or made any decisions as a group. Members of council we spoke with specifically denied coordinating their decision not to return to chambers.
No quorum of council was present to discuss or advance council business during the recess from the meeting on March 25, 2025, and I found no evidence of a collective decision not to return to council chambers following the recess. Accordingly, no illegal meeting took place and council did not contravene the open meeting rules.
Dubé chose to opine with disapproval of how the 17 conducted themselves that evening.
I urge members of council for the County of Simcoe to be mindful of how their conduct reflects perceived adherence to the open meeting rules. It is understandable that the events that took place on March 25, 2025 left members of the public with the reasonable apprehension that a strategic bloc may have been formed behind closed doors to obstruct council business.
Beyond the Simcoe County case, the other reports released in March revealed common compliance failures: council members failing to pass proper resolutions stating the general subject matter to be discussed in closed session, failure to record complete and accurate closed session minutes, and a case of an “emergency meeting” that the Ombudsman determined not to be an emergency. That meeting was illegally closed to the public. The same “emergency” meeting cited the wrong exception for what would have, had it been properly convened, been a permitted closed meeting.
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Published: March 28, 2026
Last updated: March 28, 2026
Author: Joey Coleman
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