The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has ruled that Brampton City Council’s decision to pre-fill a seat left vacant after the provincial election was unlawful.
According to court documents obtained by CP24, council met on May 31 to appoint a replacement for Charmaine Williams, then the representative for Wards 7 and 8, in case she is elected MPP for Brampton Center later in the week.
At the time, the council discussed the legality of making a conditional appointment to a council member before a vacancy was announced, the documents said. This person will hold the seat until the next municipal elections.
The motion passed, although five of 11 people, including Mayor Patrick Brown, voted against it. Williams participated in the vote and voiced his support behind the appointment.
In a news release issued Tuesday, those who voted against the motion alleged that the other six councilors “made backroom deals” in choosing Elaine Moore to replace Williams. That group of councilors says Moore has “zero ties to Wards 7 and 8 and is best known for her opposition to LRT as a former councilor and for supporting religiously discriminatory policies as a former school trustee.”
“From day one, six councilors behind closed doors to maintain a destructive grip on the Council, at the expense of residents, orchestrated this illegal proposal, they wrote, adding that members of the public were denied the opportunity to apply for the position or provide input .
“Fearing the implications of the illegal motion for future Council decisions and believing it is his responsibility as a councilor to protect the city and taxpayers, Councilor [Harkirat] Singh has committed to legal action to stop the appointment so the city can be protected from future legal challenges, potentially saving taxpayers millions of dollars,” the release said.
Singh had previously tried to make motions to seek legal advice on the appointment, but these were rejected.
In the ruling, Judge Michael T. Doy noted that the council had not yet declared the seat vacant when it appointed a replacement councilor and that Williams had not yet resigned from the position.
Once the seat is vacant, the municipality must appoint a person to fill it within 60 days or pass a bylaw requiring a by-election to be held, unless the election is already scheduled within 90 days after the vacancy is announced
“From the clear and specific language in ss. 262, para. 1 and 263, para. 5, item 1 of the Act on municipalities for the filling of vacant positions and applying the modern approach to the interpretation of the law, I am satisfied that the municipal council can proceed to appoint a person to fill a vacant position only after it has announced the vacancy of its next meeting after the vacancy,” Doi wrote.
The design of this statutory mechanism reasonably ensures that the sitting member of the council whose departure creates a vacancy will not participate in the process of determining who shall be appointed to fill a vacancy on the council pursuant to ss. 263(1) and 263(5)(1)(i) of the Municipalities Act respectively. Given the collective interaction between all these provisions, the design of the mechanism is clearly intended to maintain the integrity of the process for replacing members of the Council by excluding vacators from the process to avoid any potential for evil or the appearance of impropriety.
“I hasten to add that neither party is alleging bad faith by anyone in this matter, and I am making no findings of willful misconduct.”
Brown, along with Singh and the four other councilors who voted against the council’s proposal to fill the vacancy, will hold a news conference at noon Tuesday to discuss the court’s decision.
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