Surrey councillors set to vote again on freezing new ethics complaints before election
A controversial bylaw amendment related to ethics complaints against the City of Surrey has resurfaced for consideration by the mayor and council.
If approved, changes to the Council Code of Conduct Bylaw would freeze the processing of all new ethics complaints until after the municipality’s general election in the fall.
The suggestion was initially up for a vote on Jan. 31, but Mayor Doug McCallum introduced a motion to remove it from the Jan. 31 agenda just hours before the meeting began.
The amendment has reappeared on the April 11 agenda, described as “a bylaw to clarify the Ethics Commissioner’s jurisdiction, to clarify rules of ethical conduct and to align the bylaw with related policies and procedures.”
According to Coun. Jack Hundial, amendments to the Council Code of Conduct Bylaw include both “general housekeeping items” and the controversial ingredient, limiting the timeframe during which ethics complaints can proceed.
If given the green light, the Surrey Ethics Commissioners Office would not be able to process new complaints between April 12 of the year of a general local election and the day Surrey voters hit the ballot box.
“Normally in other communities where they have similar types of processes set up, there is a sort of moratorium period prior to an election, which is normally about 90 days,” Hundial explained.
“In this case, they’re proposing perhaps limiting it to six months out from an election and yet we have a mayor who’s criminally charged before the courts right now.”
McCallum’s office has not yet returned a request for comment on this story.
When he moved to drop the bylaw amendment from the agenda in January, the mayor said the goal of the change was to ensure the Surrey Ethics Commissioner Office could not be used for partisan purposes during the election period.
The proposal had, however, drawn backlash both from voters and councillors.
“The work of the Ethics Commissioner is valuable and the misinformation circulating about the bylaw is unfortunate,” McCallum said in a Jan. 31 statement.
The proposed amendment first surfaced as the embattled mayor faces an ethics complaint about staying on as chair of the Surrey Police Service board while charged with public mischief.
That investigation will continue and would have even if the amendment had been approved.
Nevertheless, some Surrey councillors panned it for poor optics and lack of transparency, including Hundial, Linda Annis, and Brenda Locke.
“Bringing this back and stopping it as of virtually tomorrow — all complaints — is outrageous and a real affront to the public trust,” Locke told Global News.
“It so compromises the integrity of the office. This isn’t about the person, this is about the office of the mayor and the office of councillors.”
Monday night’s agenda clarifies that the bylaw amendment will only be considered if councillors approve recommendations from a corporate report presented by staff.
In a previously emailed statement, ethics commissioner Reece Harding said he would respect the council’s process.
“As such, I do not believe it is currently appropriate for me to comment on this bylaw amendment,” he wrote on Jan. 31.
Other proposed changes to the Code of Conduct Bylaw up for consideration on Monday are intended to “improve” the legislation by clarifying both the commissioner’s jurisdiction and “a number of rules of ethical conduct.”
Councillors may also look at proposals intended to “improve on various procedural matters pertaining to the intake of complaints and the dispute resolution processes, including aligning the Code of Conduct with related policies and procedures.”
McCallum’s public mischief charge stemmed from an investigation into his claims that someone ran over his foot at a Save-On-Foods parking lot during an altercation with opponents of the city’s police transition last September.
McCallum has previously declined to comment on that matter while it’s before the courts.
With files from Simon Little
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