One of the outgoing County of Simcoe council’s more controversial decisions of their term came back to the table on Tuesday, but ended with a whimper instead of a bang.
Two separate staff reports were considered at County of Simcoe council’s last committee of the whole and council meeting of the term on Nov. 8: one with the findings of an integrity commissioner investigation into a data breach of a confidential report on the proposed dissolution of the Simcoe County Library Co-operative from April; the other, a report of the county’s closed-meeting investigator who found that the vote to dissolve the co-op was done improperly in closed session by councillors as part of the regional governance review task force.
“I don’t think (the findings) change outcomes at all, but there are lessons learned at all times,” county Chief Administrative Officer Mark Aitken said in an interview on Tuesday. “It would have been better if we had separated some of those things that didn’t need to go in-camera.”
“The county does very little in-camera compared to a lot of local municipalities,” he said, noting that changes are already being made to county procedures to improve transparency on in-camera votes and discussions.
During a council meeting in April, County of Simcoe councillors said there should be "consequences" after a confidential report regarding the possibility of dissolving the co-op went onto the public county website for a brief time prior to a council vote on the matter and was allegedly downloaded and circulated by CEOs at municipal libraries in Simcoe County. The issue had been resolved within three hours of it being reported, however it was accessed by top library officials from the region.
The library co-op report was presented to council in closed session and included a recommendation to dissolve the 74-year-old Simcoe County Library Co-operative that served 14 public libraries across Simcoe County as a cost-sharing service for special collections and bulk-purchasing.
County council ultimately voted to dissolve the co-operative while replacing it with the Information Library Service (ILS). The ILS would replace many of the IT functions previously performed by the co-op, including cloud-based e-services IT platform, cyber-security threat protection, and IT HelpDesk.
“The context is much bigger than this. The county did an efficiency review into the overall structure. What we’re putting in place instead is a much-improved service,” said Aitken.
All county libraries had the option to either opt-in or opt-out of the new ILS system. As of now, the only municipality to not sign on to the new system is Bradford West Gwillimbury, who have been vocal about their opposition to the move.
Following the vote to dissolve the co-op at their April meeting, county council called for an investigation into the breach.
The integrity commissioner report on the breach considered on Tuesday was prepared by Principles Integrity, however was not released to the public. County clerk John Daly drafted a summarized version of the report to be provided to the public on Tuesday, which was confirmed by integrity commissioner Jeffrey Abrams to be a fair summary of his report's findings.
According to the public report, the integrity commissioner was successful in identifying the individuals who accessed and shared the confidential April 19 library co-op report prior to a council vote, although their names are not included in Daly's summary. Abrams report notes that the April 19 confidential report was confirmed to be shared beyond Simcoe County to the CUPE 5820.01 which represents chief librarians and other county employees, the Ontario Library Service, Federation of Ontario Public Libraries, and the Ministry of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries.
Abrams also identified that the Public Libraries Act does not provide for ethical oversight of library functions, however he called the distribution of the April 19 report "inappropriate."
"Any attempt to rationalize unethical behaviour merely because information was briefly and inadvertently publicly viewable does not justify it,” he noted.
On Tuesday, councillors voted to send the Principles Integrity confidential report on the information breach to lower-tier municipal CAOs across Simcoe County, and to all library board chairs to use the information as they see fit.
The second report considered by councillors on Tuesday regarding the decision to dissolve the library co-op was a closed-meeting investigation conducted by Aird & Berlis, which found that the county’s regional government review task force contravened the Municipal Act and the procedural bylaws for discussing the entire matter in closed session and improperly holding a vote in closed session.
The complainant that sparked the investigation is not identified in the report.
While the investigator Paula Boutis clarified that the closed portion should have been limited to labour relations and negotiation concerns, whereas the remainder of the discussion should have been in a companion open report.
“The task force held, at least in part, an improper vote in closed session, as the motion voted upon contained several items that did not address a procedural matter or constitute directions or instructions to officers, employees or agents of the county,” noted Boutis in her report.
Moving forward, Boutis’s report recommends a checklist should be developed at the county to ensure that resolutions to convene a closed session always include reference to the general nature of the matter to be discussed while considering if parts may be separated from the closed matters through a companion open report.
The topics of discussion that qualify for a closed-session meeting are listed in the Municipal Act, as is the requirement to publicly identify the reason for the closed session.
“Perfection is not required, however, on the facts of this case, it appears that significant portions could easily have been addressed through a report and discussion in open session,” noted Boutis.
During Tuesday’s meeting, councillors voted in favour of having the governance committee review their procedural bylaw; there was no discussion.
Task force chair and Wasaga Beach Mayor Nina Bifolchi was not in attendance for Tuesday’s meeting, however sent a comment to CollingwoodToday via email regarding the two reports.
“The end result of the library modernization decision will bring value to all county taxpayers and the local library branches,” said Bifolchi. “The breach of confidential information by some individuals was concerning.”
