The Ontario Ombudsman released a few closed meeting reports in recent weeks.
Some of the reports note what I will describe as technical violations: failure to take proper closed session minutes, mistakenly locked doors during the open procedural motion for otherwise closed meetings, and failure to provide a general description of the closed matter.
Town of Grimsby, the Town of Lincoln, and the Township of West Lincoln
The most novel of the recent decisions is a closed session joint meeting between council members from the Town of Grimsby, the Town of Lincoln, and the Township of West Lincoln on August 9, 2023, to discuss the Provincial government’s pending review of Niagara’s regional governance structure.
The meeting was to hear from a municipal consultant on governance options for the three municipalities to potentially create a joint submission. This fits under the exception for education or training, the Ombudsman determined.
However, the council members then formed small-group discussions about governance matters in Niagara West. These deliberative discussions, in closed session, violated the open meeting requirement.
The Ombudsman report states, “We were told that the small groups discussed a variety of matters regarding potential changes to local governance as a result of the regional governance review. For example, council members shared their ideas and opinions about the role of regional government in the future, downloading regional services to the local municipalities, and the possible amalgamation
of the three municipalities. Following the discussions, each Mayor provided a summary of their table’s conversation to the larger group.”
This does not fit under the education or training exception, because, ‘There was no receipt of information for the purpose of educating or training councillors,’ and the ‘small-group discussions materially advanced the business or decision-making of the three councils.’
Town of Halton Hills
In August 2023, Town of Halton Hills Mayor decided she wanted to talk about the recent Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference in closed session.
Despite being cautioned this was not permitted, at the end of a permitted closed session, the Mayor announced ‘she wanted to provide an update further to the recent provincial announcements made during the AMO conference.’ Council remained in closed session, and the Mayor gave their update.
Beyond the obvious open meeting violation, the discussion was not declared as part of the agenda.
The Town tried to claim the update fit within the exception for education or training.
Oshawa
Oshawa Council had audio problems during a livestream, preventing the public from hearing the proceedings. Oshawa also experienced website issues, resulting in agendas being unavailable.
The website issues were not a closed meeting violation, because the municipality ‘promptly’ addressed the issue.
The Municipal Act does not require livestreaming meetings. Therefore, there was no open meeting violation.
“The City has also updated its website to explicitly state that, as set out in its procedure by-law, meetings are held in person and the webcasts are provided for convenience only.”
Municipality of Whitestone
The Municipality of Whitestone was investigated for alleged violations during seven meetings in 2022 and 2023. Six of the seven meetings had open meeting violations because the municipality did not provide, or provided incorrect, information to observe via Zoom videoconference.
The Council tried to argue none of this mattered because video recordings were released after the meeting.
Ombudsman Paul Dube’s report states, “Council members also suggested that the Act’s open meeting requirements would be satisfied if post-meeting recordings were made publicly available.
This is also incorrect.”
Adding, “The Municipality’s ‘no harm, no foul’ attitude must be rejected. Compliance with the law is not optional. Council may not breach the mandatory requirements of the Act when they feel that no harm may come from failing to provide adequate public notice.”
Elliot Lake
Elliot Lake Council decided to go into closed session to debate their procurement practices, trying to claim they were being educated on them, and therefore could use the education and training open meeting exception.
In closed session, they were presented ‘a draft procurement by-law and slides from a PowerPoint presentation on proposed changes to the City’s procurement practices, among other documents.’
“During the presentation, members of council asked questions and provided feedback on the City’s existing purchasing practices,” the Ombudsman report states.