BLACK RIVER-MATHESON - A Northern Ontario municipality's mayor and its CAO are speaking out against three councillors who are hoping to force a byelection.
On Monday (March 18), Black River-Matheson councillors Dave Dyment, Louise Gadoury and Steven Campsall issued a letter to the community stating that they believe council has "broken down." Dyment has complained that city staff spend too much time and money on legal issues related to social media posts, and thinks the current year's budget process is taking too long.
The three councillors, who have hired a lawyer, have forced the town’s two previous council meetings — on Feb. 13 and March 12 — to be cancelled after not attending, resulting in a lack of quorum.
The township has a seven-person council and at least four members must be present for the meeting to happen.
If a municipal council can’t hold a meeting for 60 days because of a lack of quorum, the Minister of Municipal Affairs may declare all of the seats vacant, triggering a byelection.
But CAO Chris Wray, Matheson's CAO, says he is skeptical anything like that will actually happen. Wray notes that since the Municipal Act was established in 2001, the clause has never been used in the province.
“And in the previous Municipal Act, it was only ever used once, and that was in the 1980s… From my perspective, it's just not going to happen,” he said.
SEE: Matheson closes town hall, cancels council meeting for 'safety concerns'
RELATED: One member short of quorum, Matheson council meeting cancelled
SEE: Three Matheson councillors boycotting meetings to try and force byelection
On Thursday (March 21), Mayor Doug Bender issued a statement expressing he is “deeply troubled” by the councillors’ plan to boycott council meetings.
“This plan is terribly misguided. Councillors are elected to participate in council meetings. That duty begins with regular attendance, and involves considering the materials presented to them, debating issues vigorously, and accepting the results of council votes,” he wrote.
“In a democratic council this will sometimes mean that the agenda of one councillor may not align with others. This reality should not cause the dissentient councillor to withdraw from debate and refuse to attend. In law, being absent is different than resigning. It has a legal consequence which can result - in some circumstances - in the dismissal of all of council, but, such a result is drastic.”
A two-month delay won’t help residents, Bender said.
“How does closing council help negotiate a new collective agreement? How does closing council secure approval for new building projects or get funding for other endeavours,” he said.
"Delay is counterproductive and it also ruins the reputation of the community as a good place to do business. Delay sends a bad message, and I am sure any reasonable person can see the solution involves returning to council.”
Councillors Chantal Rondeau and Allana Schmidt released a letter on Friday (March 22) supporting Bender and said they don’t agree with Dyment, Gadoury, and Campsall’s comments that council is “stymied and can no longer function in the best interests of the community.”
Bender told TimminsToday there’s no reason council isn’t fixable.
“It just requires everybody to work together. As long as everybody comes to the table and goes through the process that we're all sworn to follow,” he said.
“As far as managing the relationship between councillors, obviously anytime there's any friction it always takes time.”
The friction can be replaced with good, Bender added.
“The main thing everybody has to remember here is we were all elected, acclaimed, call it what you want, but even being acclaimed means you're elected because nobody was interested in disputing your ability to do the job,” he said.
“So, we're all basically elected officials responsible for moving our municipality forward… I just want to get back to getting the work of the municipality done.”
The next scheduled virtual meeting is March 26.
