Skip to content

Code of Conduct complaints could get deadline extension

'You don’t know how good your policies are until you need them,' says Mayor Jeff Lehman
2020-08-18 Barrie City Hall RB
Barrie City Hall is shown in a file photo. Raymond Bowe/BarrieToday

Change is coming to the city’s ‘respect in the workplace policy.'

Barrie councillors gave initial approval Monday night to a motion changing the council and committee member Code of Conduct and the council-staff relations policy, along with other actions taken by the city resulting from a workplace harassment investigation last year involving a councillor and city staff member.

“You don’t know how good your policies are until you need them,” said Mayor Jeff Lehman. “It becomes very important to have policies that are easy to follow, especially in these cases, where the matters are sensitive and the detail is important.”

City council will consider final approval of this motion at its April 26 meeting.

The city previously had separate policies addressing workplace violence and harassment, including a workplace human rights policy and violence in the workplace policy, as well as corresponding workplace human rights procedure. Council directed a review of the city’s workplace policies dealing with harassment, violence, human rights discrimination and Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) matters.

After the review, the various policies were combined into a single ‘respect in the workplace policy’ that has been reviewed by and reflects the comments of the city’s joint health and safety committee, internal legal counsel, external legal counsel, Aird & Berlis LLP, the director of human resources and the integrity commissioner. The policy has been amended to clearly identify that it applies to discrimination, violence, harassment  including sexual harassment  as defined under the Human Rights Code or OHSA.

It applies to all city employees, and individuals who interact with city employees, including members of council, those appointed to council committees and boards, contractors and consultants, volunteers and patrons in the context of their interactions and dealings with city employees.

And councillors paved the way Monday for a change to Barrie’s Code of Conduct, an agreed-upon understanding by all members of council about what standards they should meet in the individual conduct of their official duties.

They passed a motion that the city clerk consult with the integrity commissioner concerning the feasibility of amending the code’s wording from "no more than six months after the alleged violation occurring" to "no more than one year after the alleged violation occurring," and report back to general committee.

Coun. Keenan Aylwin noted the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal and the Canadian Human Rights Commission both use a one-year deadline.

“I think that’s a reasonable timeframe for submitting a complaint,” he said. “Six months is kind of an arbitrary number.”

But Coun. Sergio Morales wanted a better explanation.

“This process that we’ve engaged in that has been lengthy, expensive and necessary, has been ongoing. We’re in April, March, February, January, December, November, more or less six months, give or take,” he said. “Why the realization now? I won’t call this the 11th hour… but I’m just curious to… why now?

“There’s been a lot of work that’s gone into this by professional lawyers… HR (human resources) professionals. I’m wondering why you want to (look at one year). Why now?” Morales said.

“We haven’t actually had this report in front of us until now,” Aylwin said. “How we act around this table and committee tables is incredibly important in terms of instilling confidence in local government.”

The Ward 2 councillor says it’s also a matter of fairness.

“We would want to leave enough time for people to consider their options,” Aylwin said. “Coming forward with a complaint isn’t easy, so I wouldn’t want a member of the public to be worried or afraid to come forward with a complaint and run out of time because of that. 

“I think we should be giving people enough time to consider the implications of coming forward and to consider whether it would be valuable to come forward and, I think a year achieves that," he added. 

Late last year, a settlement was reached relating to an investigation into workplace harassment involving a Barrie councillor and a city employee. Council approved a motion ‘that Aird Berlis and city staff be authorized to finalize the minutes of settlement as discussed at the confidential general committee meeting on Dec. 15, 2020, subject to reasonable modifications, and that the mayor and city clerk be authorized to execute minutes of settlement and other associated documentation to give effect to the settlement.’

What the settlement was and who is involved was not part of the motion council passed. The councillor and employee have not been formally identified.

Corrective measures have also been put in place. They include the councillor undertaking training relative to workplace violence and harassment, funded by the city and approved by the city’s chief administrative officer and/or director of human resources, the councillor being required to strictly comply with the city’s staff-council relations policy, to only make contact with staff through the appropriate management, and the councillor being requested to issue a written apology to the complainant, if requested, and council for his conduct.

The ‘respect in the workplace policy’ also defers to the integrity commissioner with respect to any complaint made against those who hold office as a member of council or as a member of a city board or on a council committee under the policy; the integrity commissioner may conduct an investigation irrespective of and concurrently with any investigation performed by the city.

The policy says the city must refer a complaint to the integrity commissioner where the target of the complaint is a member of council or a council appointee to a committee or local board.

The city’s chief administrative officer must make an annual report on the number of complaints received and processed, the nature of the complaints, the resolution of the complaints and all recommendations made.

The ‘respect in the workplace policy’ is an administrative policy, so it doesn’t require council approval. Staff have presented it for information purposes.

But changes to the Code of Conduct and the council-staff relations policy require council approval.