The truth behind the secret meeting

The truth is out, and it is troubling.

Our city council has once again shown a disregard for municipal legislation and once again has been caught in the act.

The Ontario Ombudsman, in its recently released report regarding council’s closed education and training session on Dec. 17, found the meeting was closed improperly.

This is an issue all to itself and shows that our council’s “restrictive interpretation” of the municipal rules (the Ombudsman’s words) is hindering transparency. Perhaps our council needs another “education and training session,” this time regarding the closed meeting regulations under the Municipal Act. Hopefully they have learned their lesson and this one will be in open session.

However, there is a larger issue at play here, and no matter how hard councillors try to hide behind the excuse, the public is still going to feel like they were lied to.

This closed meeting on Dec. 17 was not to discuss “local distribution company trends” as it was advertised, but a thorough explanation of the benefits, risks, dividends and potential gains from the Oshawa Power and Utilities Corporation merging with Veridian (Whitby Hydro was not mentioned by the Ontario Ombudsman in this part of the report). It was clearly a chance for the OPUC to lobby councillors into believing the merger is the right course of action.  One councillor was so upset with the meeting, she stormed out after her voiced concerns were ignored. For that, Councillor Amy McQuaid-England deserves praise – at least one of our elected representatives understands the Municipal Act.

Now, councillors can be exempt from going public immediately following the meeting due to a non-disclosure agreement OPUC had with Veridian – Whitby Hydro, which is also involved in current merger talks, was not mentioned in this part of the report – which barred any discussion on details from the meeting or even the fact that council knew the merger talks were taking place. It could be argued that council was in the right not to share this information with the public and risk a lawsuit.

However, after the memorandum between OPUC, Veridian and Whitby Hydro was made public in April, the non-disclosure agreement binding council to that point would be null and void. So then why did council and our mayor continue hide the fact that they knew about the possibility of the merger before the release of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)? Because, in reality, they knew about it months before.

Council should have recognized the public’s right to know the full story and, following the release of the MOU, put out a public statement explaining the situation.

Instead, they decided to hide behind this private meeting, and hope that their once sterling record with the ombudsman may keep the real story from ever coming out.

That is the most troubling aspect of this story.