Bill 9 does little to improve broken, unethical, conflict-ridden and ineffective municipal political ethics systems across Ontario

Will the Committee, especially Ford PC Party MPPs, make the key changes needed?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Thursday, July 17, 2025

OTTAWA – Today, testifying online at the Ontario legislature’s Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy hearing in Ottawa on Bill 9, the Municipal Accountability Act, Democracy Watch called on the MPPs on the Committee to amend the Bill in key ways to make the municipal politics ethics standards and enforcement system independent and effective.

Currently, the system is full of conflicts of interest and is ineffective as municipal councillors are allowed to write their own ethics codes, chose their own ethics watchdogs (so they choose lapdogs or often fire anyone who tries to be a watchdog) and to decide whether or not to penalize any councillor found to have violated the code (which is a kangaroo court system).

Bill 9 proposes to empower the Cabinet to establish one ethics code for all municipalities, but does not require that to happen, and continues the system of city councils choosing, hiring, paying and firing their own integrity commissioner and deciding the penalty in almost all cases, with the provincial commissioner only empowered to intervene partially in cases involving the most serious violations.

“While Bill 9 takes a few steps in the right direction to improve broken, unethical, conflict-ridden and ineffective municipal political ethics systems across Ontario, the bill is far from what is needed to have an effective system across the province,” said Duff Conacher, PhD and Co-founder of Democracy Watch.  “There should be one strict, strong ethics law for all municipal councillors and staff across Ontario, and the provincial integrity commissioner should be empowered and required to investigate and rule publicly on all complaints, and to penalize all violators, with appeals to the courts allowed, similar to the system in place for enforcing the freedom of information and privacy law that applies to all municipalities.”

As well, provincial parties should work together to establish a lobbying disclosure and ethical lobbying law, and a best-practice whistleblower protection law, for all municipalities across the province, with all complaints also going to Ontario’s Integrity Commissioner.

Democracy Watch’s written submission to the Committee details the problems with the current system, and calls for amendments to Bill 9 to enact an effective system for preventing conflicts of interest and other wrongdoing by municipal councillors. An effective system is:

1. The provincial Cabinet establishes one ethics law for all municipalities across the province with strong, strict rules to require councillors and all members of local boards/entities to be honest, to disclose all their assets and liabilities in an online, searchable registry, prohibiting them from participating in any discussion, decision-making process or vote if they have even an appearance of a conflict of interest, and automatically suspending them from council if they are charged with a crime;

2. All complaints are investigated by the Ontario Integrity Commissioner (OIC);

3. Any member of the public has a right to file a complaint;

4. The OIC is required to investigate all alleged violations that it becomes aware of, and is required to issue a public ruling on every alleged violation;

5. The OIC is required to impose a penalty for every violation, on a sliding scale of penalties depending on the seriousness of the violation, including suspension from office (for example, when charged with a crime) and removal from office (for example, when convicted of a crime), and;

6. Anyone or any entity that meets the public interest standing test has a right to challenge any ruling by the OIC in court.

This would match Ontario’s system of one freedom of information and privacy protection law that applies to all municipalities in which all complaints go to the provincial Information and Privacy Commissioner, and the Commissioner is required to issue a public ruling on each complaint and the rulings are binding (although, unfortunately, there are no penalties for violating that law).

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FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch
Tel: (613) 241-5179
Cell: 416-546-3443
Email: [email protected]

Democracy Watch’s Government Ethics Campaign and Stop Secret, Unethical Lobbying Campaign