The media circus that has befallen Canada's largest city isn't likely to be repeated in Prince George, but Toronto mayor Rob Ford wasn't far from the minds of the mayor and council members gathered Wednesday night to discuss their new code of conduct.
The policy, born out of the core services review process, was fine tuned and further refined from an initial Sept. 24 meeting on the issue.
The plan is for council members to both vote on and sign their copy of document at the Dec. 16 regular council meeting.
The code of conduct sets out to "establish guidelines for the ethical and interpersonal conduct of members of council."
While the intent is for administration to present the policy for elected officials to sign at the beginning of their term, signing on to it won't be a requirement like taking the oath of office.
"There could be — just look at some examples across Canada — there could be people who get themselves elected and just decide they're going to go their own way. And they're going to be obstructive and they're going to be challenging," said Coun. Murry Krause. "You'd hope that in good faith, by working as a team you'd be prepared to sign it. I don't know that I would make someone do it."
During their discussions, council stepped back from enshrining any sort of reprisal for individuals who didn't want to adopt the policy, such as not allowing them to be appointed to committees.
"The code of conduct is supported by goodwill and civility and respect among council," said Coun. Dave Wilbur.
"I'm going to sign this because I believe in it, not because I was forced to," agreed Coun. Brian Skakun.
Coun. Garth Frizzell was looking for clarification on what avenues are available when someone is found to not be in compliance, in addition to existing laws.
"The rubber hits the road when we actually get a serious issue like they're dealing with in Toronto," he said.
Municipal laws vary between the provinces, said legislative services director Walter Babicz.
"As indicated in the compliance and enforcement section of this code, the remedies available to council are essentially limited to motions of censure and in sanction," he said.
The code, is meant to be self-enforced and any issues arising from complaints would be dealt with in a closed meeting of council.
The methods by which violations are dealt with are not set out in the Prince George policy, like they are in other municipalities.
"I think it would be preferable to leave the code silent about that because there's so many variables that could move forward," said Babicz. "We may be using a different process depending on the scenario and want the flexibility to ensure that we're using the app scenario..."
