An area council east of Toronto says it’s cancelling in-person classes and shifting conferences on-line citing “more and more hostile threats” to its members as an inner battle round one councillor escalates.
The mayor and councillors within the Metropolis of Pickering have been engaged in a rising battle with one member of council, whom they declare is linked to alt-right figures and has repeatedly disrupted conferences.
Ward 1 Coun. Lisa Robinson has been docked 9 months of pay by her colleagues over the previous yr after three successive integrity commissioner investigations discovered she had damaged the code of conduct.
Robinson has denied wrongdoing, requested a decide to overrule the integrity commissioner’s findings and alleged there’s a conspiracy towards her led by the town’s mayor.
Now, as council prepares to carry its first assembly of the yr, tensions have risen once more with the discharge of a 13-minute video on the town’s official YouTube channel saying the tip of in-person council conferences.
“Over the previous two years, the Metropolis of Pickering has witnessed a rising infiltration of alt-right people, ideologies and influences which have created an environment of uncertainly, concern and intimidation over our council,” Mayor Kevin Ashe mentioned within the video’s introduction.
The video tracks a collection of instances the city and mayor allege Robinson, who remains to be a sitting councillor, has been concerned with alt-right figures. It references conferences and city halls she has held, in addition to a controversial look on a far-right present the place the host referred to the host referred to Robinson’s council colleagues as “pedophiles” and “Nazis.”
On the finish of the video, Ashe introduced official conferences will not happen in council chambers. As a substitute, they are going to be held by way of a video conferencing platform, as they have been in the course of the pandemic.
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“The rising threats to our security demand motion,” Ashe mentioned within the video, which additionally included messages and voicemails that seem to disclose threats to council members. “This enterprise of our metropolis should, and can, proceed.”
A date has not been set for council to return to in-person conferences, Ashe mentioned in an announcement to International Information. Town deliberate to maneuver to digital conferences for a yr starting in the summertime as council chambers bear renovations.
“For the foreseeable future, conferences will proceed in a digital format till a willpower is made by the Metropolis Clerk in session with the chief administrative officer, company safety specialist, and the mayor, in accordance with the Metropolis’s Process By-law,” Ashe mentioned in his assertion.
Coun. Robinson known as the video “hilarious propaganda” in her personal video response to the allegations, saying it “works extra in my favour by exposing the mayor” and claiming the mayor and council have been utilizing “bullying ways.”
Robinson claimed Mayor Ashe and council have “a troubling sample of labelling anybody who disagrees with them as ‘alt-right’” and mentioned she doesn’t “dictate anybody’s opinions or actions.”
The newest twist in a two-year battle on Pickering council comes weeks after the Ford authorities tabled a proposed law at Queen’s Park that may permit cities and cities to take away elected councillors in sure, particular conditions.
The invoice, which has not but been handed into regulation, would permit for the creation of an ordinary code of conduct for all municipalities and penalties of eradicating and disqualifying a member from workplace if they’re in critical violation of the code.
The federal government mentioned that elimination and disqualification might solely occur if the municipal integrity commissioner recommends it, if Ontario’s integrity commissioner agrees and if councillors aside from the member in query unanimously conform to it in a vote.
Mayor Ashe has been a vocal advocate for harsher penalties to be accessible when councillors are discovered to interrupt the code of conduct, together with potential elimination from workplace.
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