In an opinion published on his office's website on Wednesday, Paul Dubé, Ombudsman of Ontario, said a Finance and Administration Committee for the City of Elliot Lake held on December 18, 2023, did not fit within any of the Municipal Act’s closed meeting exceptions and should have been an open, public meeting.
"All members of council for the City of Elliot Lake should be vigilant in adhering to their individual and collective obligation to ensure that the municipality complies with its responsibilities under the Municipal Act, 2001," Dubé wrote in his decision. "Council for the City of Elliot Lake should ensure that no subject is discussed in a closed session unless it clearly comes within one of the statutory exceptions to the open meeting requirements."
Dubé launched an investigation into the meeting after receiving a complaint about it.
In April, he informed the city of his intent to investigate the complaint and received full cooperation.
"We reviewed the city’s procedure by-law, the open and closed meeting agenda packages, the minutes of the meeting, and an audio recording of the closed meeting," he wrote. "We interviewed the Chair of the Finance and Administration Committee, the Director of Finance and Treasurer (the “Treasurer”), and the Deputy Clerk & Accessibility Coordinator (the “Deputy Clerk”), who serves as the Committee’s Recording Secretary."
In the course of the investigation, the ombudsman found that the Finance and Administration Committee is a standing committee of council and, therefore is covered by the City’s procedure by-law, which states standing committees are “responsible for formulating major and general policies for recommendation to Council”.
A discussion of policies to recommend to council would not be providing members of council or its standing committee with general information to educate them. It's a discussion that should have been held in the open, Dubé said.
At the time of the meeting, the city said it would be conducted in closed session because it was a training session, which would be allowed under the Municipal Act. But Dubé found a presentation by Special Projects Manager to the Finance and Administration Committee involved an exchange of information about the municipality’s draft procurement by-law.
"The presentation went beyond simply providing members of council with information to help them understand the municipality’s business or to acquire new skills," he wrote.
During the meeting, Council members asked questions and provided feedback on the City’s existing procurement practices. They also talked about how municipal employees generally felt about proposed changes to the procurement process and how to communicate these changes to staff.
"Under the Act, all meetings of council, local boards, and committees of either of them must be open to the public, unless they fall within the prescribed exceptions set out in section 239 of the Act," he wrote.
The other two exceptions that would allow a meeting to be held in closed session are personal matters and the security of property of the municipality.
The committee didn't talk about or reveal any personal information about identifiable individuals during the meeting so that exception wouldn't apply either.
"Our review did not identify any instances where the Committee discussed protecting the municipality’s property, including its new enterprise resource planning software, from physical loss or damage. As such, the discussion did not fit within the exception for the security of the property of the municipality," Dubé also said.
He included a link to the Ontario Ombudsman's open meeting case digest where council members and others can find previous decisions and better understand when a meeting can be closed and when it can't, according to the Ontario Municipal Act.
The next meeting of Elliot Lake City Council is Monday, September 23 at 7 p.m. in council chambers. Item 12 on the agenda, Correspondence, includes the letter from the Ombudsman of Ontario, Paul Dubé.
The meeting will be webcast by the city and people can attend it in person.