Mayor: Ombudsman was wrong
Henry says provincial watchdog's report "misinterprets" and "misapplies" the law; maintains council first heard of OPUC merger in April, not at December meeting
Despite the ONtario Ombudsman’s report saying merger talks were brought up in a closed December meeting, Mayor John Henry maintains that he and council did not know of the potential merger between the Oshawa Power and Utilities Corporation, Whitby Hydro and Veridian until a meeting four months later. That meeting was held the day before the memorandum of understanding between the three organizations to investigate a potential merger was signed. The provincial watchdog recently found the city was wrong to close the December meeting to the public.
By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express
It is unclear what will come from the Ombudsman’s damning report regarding council’s closed education and training session with the Oshawa Power and Utilities Corporation in December. Why? Because according to a letter from Mayor John Henry, they did not break any rules.
Responding to the Ombudsman’s draft report, which outlined how council’s session on Dec. 17 was illegally closed to the public, Henry claims Ombudsman Paul Dubé was wrong and that council was right to shut the doors on the meeting.
While a public notice described the closed meeting as an education and training session to receive information about “local distribution company trends,” the Ombudsman’s investigation determined the meeting was held to inform council about talks of a merger that were ongoing between the OPUC and Veridian. The two organizations had also signed a non-disclosure agreement regarding all information pertaining to the merger talks.
In the report, Dubé writes that, “although council did not debate the proposed merger or make a decision, the information presented and the questions asked materially advanced council’s business and decision-making.”
For that reason, Dubé says council contravened the Municipal Act, which states, “council may close a meeting to the public if the meeting is held for the purpose of ‘educating or training’ members, and if no member discusses or otherwise deals with a matter in a way that materially advances the business or decision-making of council.”
However, Henry disagrees, claiming no decision making was advanced and the only decision made after the meeting was done by the OPUC and related to the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Veridian and the Whitby Hydro Electric Company regarding investigating a potential merger.
“We respectfully submit that the preliminary report materially misinterprets and, therefore, misapplies the law established by the Municipal Act, 2001…for closed meetings for the purpose of education and training,” Henry writes.
However, in his final report, Dubé writes that he has “considered council’s submission in its totality and I am not persuaded by it.”
In speaking with The Oshawa Express the day of the final report’s release, Henry says the situation is an awkward one for municipalities and that Dubé’s conclusions leave very little room for councils to discuss sensitive business information with third parties.
“It’ll be very difficult going forward in the future to try and have meetings to accomplish stuff when some of that stuff just can’t be done in public,” he says.
“Is there a potential to have another problem down the road? I think so.”
Looking forward, council has called a special meeting to discuss the report on Thursday, July 28, and while Henry would not say what, if anything, would be done with the report, he explained the report mainly highlighted an issue in their processes.
“The report doesn’t say we violated anything in an extreme way. It says that we had a process-related issue.”
Report creates more questions regarding merger
Along with the contravention of the Municipal Act, the watchdog’s final report also raises another issue with council.
Following the signing of the MOU between OPUC, Veridian and Whitby Hydro, in answering questions from The Express, Mayor Henry explained that the first he had learned of the merger was in a meeting the day before the April 28 announcement.
However, the Ombudsman’s report would suggest something different, as it details very specific questions and a presentation regarding a future merger by OPUC.
Henry maintains the first he learned of the merger between the three companies was at the April meeting, stating anything before that were merely “discussions.”
“We knew that discussions were going on, but we didn’t know where it was going until we found out in April what was actually happening,” he says.
When asked to clarify by The Express how “discussions” of a merger are different from learning that a potential merger may be taking place, Henry reiterated that prior to the April meeting, council did not know that Whitby was involved, or any details about an MOU pertaining to a merger investigation.
“The first time the merger stuff came out in the true concept of a merger being discussed was when we had that meeting in April,” he says.
“When we actually sat down and put a press release out to talk about it, was when Whitby was involved, Veridian is involved and we’re involved. Prior to that, there was discussions of what was going on and discussions related to what the province was doing to the utility and that’s the topic of the conversation.”
For Gord Vickers, an Oshawa resident and a member of the Public Power Coalition, he is very disappointed in the mayor’s and council’s actions, adding there needs to be repercussions.
“They’ve been very dishonest with the public,” he says.
“They just can’t get away with this.”
Council is set to meet to discuss the report at 10:30 a.m. on July 28.