Nagy: I asked Minister Calandra for a municipal code of conduct "with teeth." Here's why
It’s time the province see this as the urgent business it is, Coun. Mara Nagy says.
“Hi. My name is Mara Nagy. I’m a councillor in Pickering and this question is for Minister Calandra.”
These were the first words in possibly the most public speech I’ve ever made, to at least 2,500 people, including the entire provincial cabinet and many cabinet critics, that has since made me a bullseye to alt-right activists, with — ironically — threats to have me removed from my position, calls to show up at my home, and calls to disrupt our upcoming council meetings. These calls and threats come after over a year of death threats, our families being considered fair game, being followed home, yelled at in the grocery store, my car being scratched, opening my front door to see I’m being chased and followed, angry emails, phone calls and more. And I’m not alone on council to receive this treatment.
It’s worth backing up here for a minute and explaining how we got here.
I love politics. I’ve been political my whole life. My first foray into politics was election campaigning when I was in high school, and I was hooked. From that moment, even when I tried to leave politics behind, it kept finding me, and at some point, it became clear that the only path for me was running for office. I was elected on October 24, 2022, over 800 votes ahead of the next candidate. I was thrilled, and even more so by the fact that our council, known for being one of the least diverse councils around, now boasted 50 per cent gender diversity.
That excitement dissipated quickly.
In May 2023, Councillor Robinson, one of our new councillors, whose past highlights include convoy participation and Islamophobic tweets that got her dropped by the Conservative Party (including one that said “Muslims go home”) took to the Durham District School Board with a megaphone during a protest against the board for what the “Concerned Parents” believed was inappropriate content in schools, largely made up of misinformation and deepfakes. She spoke of “biological bathrooms,” refusing to celebrate the richness of community through our flag raisings, and reinforcing transphobic disinformation by calling library-organized Drag Queen Story Time events “lewd adult entertainment,” announcing motions to council. Unable to find a seconder for these, she took to the internet, calling us undemocratic for not wanting this energy in our chambers, and a slew of anger and name-calling followed. Two other councillors and I filed a complaint with our Integrity Commissioner which, following a first offense for bullying her neighbours online, resulted in Councillor Robinson’s pay suspension for 30, then 60 days. And therein lay the problem.
According to the Municipal Act: “The municipality may impose either of the following penalties on a member of council or of a local board if the Commissioner reports to the municipality that, in his or her opinion, the member has contravened the code of conduct:
A reprimand.
Suspension of the remuneration paid to the member in respect of his or her services as a member of council or of the local board, as the case may be, for a period of up to 90 days.”
This means, unlike at the school boards, where trustees can be barred from appearing at a set number of meetings, no matter what a sitting councillor does, the most they can be penalized is 90 day pay suspensions over and over. In essence, the only existing methods to declare a seat vacant in the current Municipal Act are to leave the municipality, lose citizenship, miss three regular meetings of council or resign. Having said, one would think that remuneration loss is reason enough to follow a code — or perhaps at the very least, the oath of office we all solemnly swore to upon taking office. But politics is not what it used to be. It’s no longer as reasonable, folks are no longer publicly fundamentally aligned on core values of human rights; democracy, knowledge, and social progress, and we’re seeing that regression in our chambers.
In October 2023, we held our regular council meeting, with Councillor Robinson’s Integrity Commission (IC) report findings on the agenda. Despite our bylaws forbidding delegates to speak on an IC report, the chambers were packed, the delegates stacked from across southern Ontario, all to speak on a completely separate topic — a request to the province for strengthening the Municipal Act, which one by one, almost all the delegates manipulated and turned into soliloquy after soliloquy about how tyrannical, undemocratic, communist, or any other word from the metaphorical pick-your-own basket they were using. They had similar speeches, had evidently shared materials to repeat the same points over and over (despite this, again, being unpermitted for delegates to do), and this all culminated in curses to the mayor and council from the gallery, angry shouting, and being physically threatening, with a woman even grabbing another councillor to follow her into our council offices, saying “we pay for it, we should get access” — no guarantee that this woman was from Pickering.
So why do we need teeth to the Act?
Because of moments like that.
Because that was the first, but not the last time our gallery was cleared by police in order for us to be able to hold our meeting.
Because we have lost valuable staff due to Councillor Robinson’s cult of personality.
Because she’s ruling with an iron fist and people are scared.
Because our residents don’t delegate at council anymore, because they don’t know that their delegation on why their local park should have a dog park element won’t be sandwiched between a white nationalist from Diagolon calling the mayor a dictator or a member of Action4Canada saying we’re getting ready to geofence people.
Because she’s been told that this behaviour is inappropriate, that she represents a constituency, and that her ward just wants an email back on that tree that’s overhanging across the pedestrian light, and she’s ignoring them in favour of these delusions of grandeur and incitement to harass.
When Councillor Robinson faced the consequences for her actions, she took to the internet, soliciting donations to “put food on the table” despite her having other employment, and despite receiving pay for the entirety of 2024 thus far, she continues to allow the promotion of the idea that she’s unpaid and continues to solicit donations, as recently as mid-August. Under our rules, those should be declared, and they are not. But all we can do is file again, wait for a report, and thus, we enter the hamster wheel.
I speak a lot about my experience, because it’s what I’ve gone through, but this rhetoric is on the rise across Ontario, across Canada. We’ve seen the division it’s created in the United States and in Europe, and we’re quickly on our way there too.
Many fellow councillors have mentioned having folks like these delegates in their own chambers, or having councillors they work with who privately or publicly agree with the rhetoric. The more they see success with these values, the more we will see these values resurfacing in our public servants. Make no mistake, this is detrimental to democracy, and if this is not addressed, we will see this vitriol, this hatred, and the accompanying behaviour roll out across the province.
Last week in Ottawa, I had the opportunity to speak to the minister directly in a very public forum. What I asked for was a tool with teeth, something to give us the power to act on these indiscretions to our bylaws and the Act.
When our council wrote to the minister in the weeks before, we wrote of the egregiousness of these actions, and we said more stringent sanctions were imperative for holding councillors accountable, preserving the integrity of municipal governance, and upholding the highest standards of conduct for elected officials. I understand the minister’s hesitation to move forward until he’s sure what he provides can stand up to attack, and I respect and appreciate that it’s intended to protect both us and the government from further attack through challenges. But we know there was legislation almost ready to go, we know there was a private member bill that fell, we know the opposition have brought something forward, so I ask the government now to move forward in the meantime. See this as the urgent business it is, and provide us with interim measures to work with while we continue to wait patiently for the promised changes.
And when those changes come, if you listen carefully, you’ll hear cheers from councillors across the province, followed by the deep sigh of relief as we settle back down in our seats to finally hear why that park should be a dog park.
Mara Nagy is a councillor in the City of Pickering. Here’s her question to Minister Calandra at the annual Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference.