Anushka Yadav, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Pointer

When the Town of Caledon’s integrity commissioner, David G. Boghosian, referred to public delegations as a “political circus” following criticism of his most recent decision, it struck a nerve with residents and Charter experts.

“Delegations simply add an unnecessary and quite frankly harmful political element to the Code of Conduct process when the decision-making that goes into IC Reports is, and should be regarded as, apolitical, based solely on the application of legal standards,” Boghosian wrote to the Town last month, requesting that members of the public no longer be allowed to address his decisions in a municipal meeting.  

Democracy Watch co-founder, lawyer and Canadian Charter expert Duff Conacher called the recommendation “extraordinary”, “anti-democratic” and “outrageous”.

“They’re essentially saying this report is on alleged wrongdoing by a member of council, all of whom are employed by the public, but members of the public, as the employers of these people, are going to be silenced from speaking about that report on alleged wrongdoing,” Conacher told The Pointer, noting the recommendation could be open to a Charter challenge.

“That doesn’t make sense at all. It’s outrageous restriction on the free speech rights of voters in the town.”

An integrity commissioner’s decisions can be ignored by a council, which has the authority to reject any or all recommendations brought forward in an IC’s decision report.

Boghosian, who is hired and can only be fired by council, had just ruled in favour of Mayor Groves and her hand-picked CAO Nathan Hyde, who had filed complaints with the integrity commissioner claiming councillor Dave Sheen had violated the Town’s code of conduct. 

Sheen had expressed concern in May over the way Groves has handled a request by a prominent Ontario developer who wants to dump his construction waste in places including bodies of water such as a large rehabilitated site residents now call Swan Lake. 

Groves has since aggressively pushed a motion that has alarmed residents across Caledon angered by what they have described as a threat to their health and their natural surroundings.

During a council meeting on May 20, Sheen expressed concern with the motion, particularly the lack of public oversight in the proposed infill approach being pushed by Mayor Groves, which critics have said lacks proper engagement with residents and consultation with the elected council members who represent them. 

“That’s a problem for me, particularly in a Strong Mayor Power environment where there is an enormous pressure on staff to give the Mayor what she wants,” Sheen said.

Earlier in the council term, Sheen, who has been one of the strongest voices demanding better accountability to taxpayers in decision making, filed a freedom of information request to find out how Hyde was hired, after questions swirled about unilateral decisions being made by Groves after she first took office in late 2022, and subsequent staffing turmoil since Hyde was named CAO.

The information Sheen unearthed about the contract Groves had overseen to hire the new CAO alarmed Caledon residents.   

In a predominantly rural municipality with approximately 80,000 residents at the time, Hyde was given a salary of $270,000 to work only 35 hours a week, with 1.5 times his hourly rate applied for any extra work. Only Groves has direct oversight of Hyde who, unlike CAOs that have traditionally answered to all of council, is only accountable to Groves. And if he is fired without cause Caledon taxpayers will be on the hook to pay him three years of full-time earnings, an amount far beyond severance standards in Ontario. 

In 2023, the year Hyde was brought on by Groves, the Town of Caledon, a relatively small municipal operation, saw 58 resignations and 17 staff who were fired, far more turnover compared to previous years. 

Sheen publicly expressed concerns over the impact on morale and the loss of significant institutional knowledge. 

It was clear that Hyde was upset over the councillor’s efforts to inform taxpayers and raise concerns about his hiring and the subsequent loss of key staff.

In July last year, the CAO released a statement posted on the Town website with his name at the bottom: “…Councillor Sheen alleged Mayor Groves violated the fundamentals of the Municipal Act with parts of my contract. Again, this is false, and any suggestion the Mayor has broken the law harms her reputation and those of the Town, and our employees, residents, and businesses.”

A CAO is not supposed to voice such blatantly political sentiments and is expected to work with all council members as a liaison between them, the decision makers, and staff, who the CAO leads in an effort to execute the decisions made by all of council collectively on behalf of the constituents who put them in office to represent them.

His public attack against Sheen, using the taxpayer-funded Town website, preceded the integrity commissioner complaints filed by Hyde and Groves against the councillor.

Sheen might not have anticipated what came next.

On September 23 Sheen was punished after Groves and Hyde had filed complaints against him with the integrity commissioner. 

Boghosian decided that Sheen’s statements regarding strong mayor powers and his concern that there is “enormous pressure on staff to give the Mayor what she wants” breached parts of the Town’s code of conduct, including sections 5.2 and 5.4, which require members to respect staff professionalism and avoid public criticism that could undermine their credibility, and section 3.4, which cautions against making disparaging comments about Council processes, decisions, or other members.

“A key finding I made based on Councillor Sheen’s responses and responses to questions I posed to him was that he had no evidence that Mayor Groves had in fact tried to influence or pressure staff to go along with their wishes at any point in time,“ the Town’s integrity commissioner, Boghosian, said at the General Committee Meeting three weeks ago when presenting his report on the complaints.

“I didn’t have evidence of inappropriate pressure from the Mayor or unprofessional conduct by staff, because I didn’t have it, and that’s not what I was accusing them of. I was not focused on individual staff members. I was focused on the concept of strong mayor powers and the impact that it has on municipal civil servants,” Sheen responded.

Since her election in 2022, Groves has used her authority as mayor in ways seldom seen across Ontario, without the traditional checks and balances councillors and the public provide.

During public meetings, residents have repeatedly voiced their opposition to the way she has used her power.

During one packed public meeting last year a large photo of Groves was projected onto a screen with the words, “Broken Promises” above her image.

Residents displayed placards with the words “Caledon Under Threat” when staff, led by Hyde, followed direction from Groves with little to no public input or work done by the Town’s planning experts to address the mayor’s developer-driven scheme that advanced applications brought forward by builders without any of the traditional planning controls a municipality would use to protect local interests.  

It was revealed that the dozen highly controversial bylaws (even the provincial government and Region of Peel said they violated superseding legislation) were drafted for Groves by Quinto Annibale, a development lawyer with Loopstra Nixon who was also representing one of the developers who stood to gain from the rezoning. Town staff failed to explain how this was not a conflict of interest.

The obvious influence Groves has exerted over staff was never more evident than during a public meeting last year in April when a crush of residents came out to voice their anger at the mayor for the dozen pre-zoning amendments Groves eventually pushed through, which will allow developers to build 35,000 homes in Caledon, more than doubling its population.

Instead of being able to question unbiased municipal staff who work for the taxpayers about the controversial plan that Groves had brought forward without any prior public engagement, representatives from Loopstra Nixon, the same firm whose employee had drafted the bylaws for the mayor, and consulting firm Macaulay Shiomi Howson Ltd. answered the majority of questions at the April 25, 2024 public meeting, defending the mayor’s plan.

At a council meeting a week later, facing furious residents who packed Town Hall where overflow rooms had to be used, Groves was forced to acknowledge that an outside consultant—who does not answer to the taxpayers and is not ultimately responsible for the decisions of elected officials who represent Caledon property owners—should not have been put in front of them to answer their questions. 

“[Y]our questions were not answered,” Groves admitted during the council meeting at the end of April, 2024. She said “it is important that we need to listen, we need to provide the community with the information that they are looking for, we need to address all the concerns that you raised.” 

She added that the Town’s “own staff” needs to be in front of the citizens they answer to.

Throughout last year, as the issue of the bylaw amendments to open up lands for 35,000 new homes dominated local politics, Janet Eagleson, manager of public affairs for the Town of Caledon, repeatedly defended the mayor’s plan. 

At one meeting, when residents pointed out that maps showed the bylaws would allow their properties to be carved up for new developments, Eagleson tried to assure them that there would be no issues with their properties. 

Eagleson told residents there was no conflict with using Loopstra Nixon to draft the bylaws for Groves while the firm was representing one of the developers that stood to benefit, because it provided a “satisfactory” explanation. She did not tell residents what this “satisfactory” explanation was.     

Staff then used the Town’s website, which Groves is not supposed to have any control over, to defend her actions. 

“On March 26 (2024), Mayor Groves gave direction to advance the rezoning of 12 development applications in Caledon. This bold and unprecedented announcement demonstrates Caledon’s commitment to proactively tackle the housing crisis and foster sustainable growth in the community”.

The sprawl growth she was now pushing was exactly what she promised to fight against when she campaigned for the mayor’s job in 2022 on an anti-development platform. 

Staff defended the way Groves aggressively pushed the dozen rezoning bylaws that support the applications by developers. 

“[U]sing Strong Mayor Powers is an unprecedented direction…The zoning approvals for the lands included in the direction by Mayor Groves will enable staff to advance the development applications through the remaining municipal planning process,” staff wrote on the Town website in May last year, when residents mobilized to force Groves to back down from her plan. 

Later in the year, she successfully forced her 12 bylaw amendments through with staff repeatedly defending a plan that was drafted by a development lawyer simultaneously representing one of the builders who stood to benefit. It did not originate from Caledon’s own planning staff, who never scrutinized the mayor’s plan.     

Her hiring of Hyde, sweeping developer-friendly planning amendments (written by a development lawyer) Groves pushed through last year and now the infill bylaw she is determined to pass have prompted residents to publicly voice the same concern Sheen brought up in May.

Ultimately, it resulted in a 15-day suspension of his pay, which he has asked to be donated to Kids Help Phone.

Residents questioned how raising concern regarding the influence Groves has over staff with her strong mayor powers could be seen as a violation of the code of conduct.

Groves created a contract for the Town’s CAO that makes him ultimately accountable only to her, meaning she controls the person who controls the entire staff complement of the municipality.    

Since taking office in 2022, Sheen has faced four integrity commissioner complaints, three were linked to his questioning of strong mayor powers and the subsequent erosion of transparency and public trust in local government.

With the next municipal election just a year away, some Caledon residents The Pointer spoke with say their voting plans have shifted dramatically since 2022, when Groves won on a platform that promised to put the environment and residents ahead of developers.

One of them, Cheryl Connors, was preparing to leave for the council meeting on October 7 to speak against the commissioner’s recommendation to prevent people like her from addressing his decision reports, when her 24-year-old son stopped her, “upset” to see her heading to Town Hall yet again after long, exhausting nights spent preparing for an upcoming conference she’s organizing.

“He asked me, ‘Why are you wasting your time, Mom? You need to take care of your own health’,” Connors said while delegating on Tuesday inside the council chamber.

“Why do you keep going over there?” 

Connors has been an active community member, driven in part by having endured the risks of living next to an active aggregate site, a motivation that pushes her to show up whenever the community faces threats—because life in Caledon, many residents say, is far from simple. 

In the last year and a half, they have watched a long series of decisions by both the Town and the province that have left them feeling confused and sidelined:

• 12 parcels of land, including portions of Greenbelt and farmland, designated for housing.
• A proposed blasting quarry that will make it impossible for neighbouring residents to live in Cataract or even sell their homes.
• Families preparing to lose their homes to make way for Highway 413.
• A motion to allow a former aggregate site, now a remediated water body, to be filled with construction waste.
• Police presence at a public open house about a fill bylaw that residents fear would affect their land, water and quality of life.

Now, many residents are angered by another possible layer of erosion in the local democratic process. The requested removal of their right to delegate on matters related to integrity commissioner investigation findings, because the integrity commissioner believes that—despite the obvious conflict that exists due to the mayor’s powers to have him fired—his decisions should be final, and beyond any questioning by the public, was the latest threat to democracy in Caledon, they say.  

Connors explained to her son what happened to Councillor Sheen, who was asked to apologize to staff and received a 15-day pay suspension on September 23 following the remarks he made about strong mayor powers at a council meeting in May.

Her son’s response caught her off guard.

“‘Well, they can’t do that. We have freedom of expression in our Charter,’” she recalled before those gathered in the chamber this week, her voice shaking but her eyes beaming with pride. 

“I can tell you that brought tears to my eyes…I thought I’ve done a good job as a mom. My kid understands that we have Charter rights and freedoms, freedom of expression, rights protected for all citizens.” 

Connors said the moment reminded her that these democratic protections are not to be taken for granted, especially as Canadians watch them erode elsewhere.

“When we see what’s going on south of the border now and the fast erosion of democracy, if we think that can’t happen here…it makes me sick, and you feel helpless,” she said. 

“I can’t solve every problem, but I can come here and make my son proud that I’m at least doing my bit here to protect our democratic rights.”

On September 25, Boghosian, the integrity commissioner, submitted a letter to Town clerk Kevin Klingenberg recommending a change to the Town’s Procedural Bylaw that would remove the public’s right to delegate on IC reports, unless a councillor brings forward a motion to grant an exemption.

“The timing looks terrible… it almost seems self-serving. And that’s a problem, because he is supposed to be impartial… It doesn’t make him look impartial anymore,” councillor Dave Sheen told The Pointer.

In the letter, Boghosian explained that IC investigations are part of a quasi-judicial process, decisions made “based on facts and legal principles, not political considerations”. Once a report is finalized, its findings and recommended penalties cannot be altered or rejected by Council.

His claims contradict the facts. Ontario’s Ombudsman has repeatedly voiced concerns about integrity commissioner reports and has himself been forced to criticize them. When the Ombudsman went into Niagara Region almost a decade ago to investigate what would eventually be detailed in his “Inside Job” report, he detailed numerous glaring failures of the integrity commissioner who failed to find any of the evidence that the Ombudsman later unearthed in a widespread CAO hiring scandal that had gripped the region for years.

Integrity commissioners have faced legal action and have routinely been terminated for glaring problems with their work. 

Brampton’s current integrity commissioner, Muneeza Sheikh, had a previous friendship with the city’s mayor, Patrick Brown, and had no experience ever working in municipal law or as an integrity commissioner before Brown had the job handed to her. She has faced criticism for alarming decisions that cleared Brown of obvious wrongdoing.

Concerns around municipal integrity commissioners have become so common that the Ombudsman, Paul Dubé felt compelled to write a letter to the municipal affairs minister in February as part of the provincial government’s effort to introduce tighter rules for accountability in the municipal sector. 

“My Office received more than 300 cases (complaints and inquiries) related to codes of conduct and integrity commissioners between March 1, 2019 and March 31, 2024,” Dubé wrote. “Given our experience with resolving cases about integrity commissioners, we have developed best practice resources for municipalities and the public.”

Dubé wants to see an end to integrity commissioners being hired without any experience; he recommends that the rules commissioners use to justify their findings should be standardized, instead of allowing councils to create wording in a code of conduct that allows integrity commissioners to effectively ignore bylaws, other pieces of legislation and, ultimately, the Charter, which are above any accountability language laid out by council; and he reinforced the need for integrity commissioners to report “publicly and to council on their findings and recommendations” to ensure transparency and accountability to the taxpayers.

Other recommendations the ministry has received include a process where an integrity commissioner’s findings could not only be scrutinized by the public, the province’s integrity commissioner or an independent panel would also have the authority to question a local integrity commissioner and overturn their findings.

None of this stopped Boghosian from requesting that his reports be final, without any input or scrutiny from the public.    

“Delegations are of no relevance to IC Report agenda items as there is no decision-making process involved on the part of Council for delegates to influence. That is because by the time the Report is on the agenda, the decision has already been made,” he wrote to the Town in September, following the criticism he faced for his report on Sheen. 

Conacher, Connors and others The Pointer spoke with expressed concern that Caledon held a vote this week to approve Boghosian’s request which would prevent any public delegations on his decisions, potentially violating Charter rights.

Former Caledon councillor Ian Sinclair also warned that the proposed ban would effectively preclude democratic expression.

“Freedom of expression is also a Charter value, and administrative decision makers must properly balance the relevant statutory objectives with this value when exercising their discretion,” Sinclair said, addressing council on Tuesday, when the vote on Boghosian’s request was set to be held. 

He said such restrictions conflict with the “open court principle”, which guarantees public access to institutional decision-making.

The Supreme Court of Canada notes the principle “is protected by the right to freedom of expression guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms”, and “serves to instill public confidence in the justice system.”

“The open court principle is embedded in the common law tradition and is protected by Section 2(b) because it promotes a full and fair discussion of public institutions, which is vital to any democracy,” he told council.

“The attempt to ban delegations on integrity commissioner reports would discourage transparency and confidence in the administration of justice.”

He urged the town to host a public seminar on Charter rights to ensure residents, staff, and council understand the limits of government power, which was unanimously supported by the council.

Longtime resident Mira Budd told council she “strongly disagrees” with the integrity commissioner’s rationale, noting that contrary to Boghosian’s claim, council does have the authority to alter recommended penalties.

“Following delegations, council has exercised authority to modify the penalties recommended by the IC. So to say there’s no decision-making role is simply incorrect,” Budd said. Councillor Sheen’s pay cut was reduced from 30 days to 15 days after delegations from residents, who criticized the integrity commissioner’s claims in his decision report. 

Conacher said the Town’s proposal to silence delegations must also be viewed in the broader context of bill 9, the Municipal Accountability Act, the PC government’s proposed overhaul of municipal ethics laws.

Under bill 9, and even under the current system, councils retain the authority to decide penalties for members who violate their code of conduct. That political role, Conacher argues, makes public input essential. 

“Under bill 9…council decides the penalty for someone who violates the code of conduct, and the public should be there saying, you know, this is what we think council should do,” he said. 

“If someone from the public is interested in that decision and wants to give their input, the council shouldn’t be automatically denying them and forcing them to appeal to get an exemption. They should be, just like they do in regular meetings, scheduling people to appear.”

Conacher called it “outrageous” for a municipality to “shut off these meetings from public input.”

Ward 1 resident, Keirstyn Parfitt, warned that the proposal “is an attempt to suppress public feedback and shield his (Boghosian’s) office from critique.”

“The integrity commissioner is paid for by the taxpayer. And the people of Caledon have both the right and the responsibility to voice concerns about how public duties are being carried out. Silencing those voices undermines the democratic engagement process,” Parfitt said.

“Recently, at a town bylaw open house, three plainclothes OPP officers and two hired security guards were present. Many residents found this intimidating and felt discouraged from asking questions or speaking freely. When viewed together, these actions paint a troubling picture: one of a government moving towards secrecy, control and reduced public oversight…I believe it would be difficult for council to justify choosing to suppress the voice of constituents on this issue, and being silenced is something that the people do not forget.”

Boghosian claimed that allowing delegations to speak on the underlying issues behind an integrity commissioner report not only “undermines the objective nature” of the report itself, but also fosters “community disrespect for the IC process” by creating the impression that the findings are politically motivated.

“There is also the issue of the precious Council time taken up by delegations to IC Report items for no purpose given that Council has no role in determining whether there has been a code of conduct breach such that there is no decision for delegates to try to influence,” he added.

Caledon’s former Ward 1 councillor, Barb Shaughnessy, called Boghosian’s choice of words “authoritarian” and “unbecoming of his position.”

“Can you imagine, just for one moment, a councillor publicly referencing the mayor’s office as a circus? I’m sure that would garner an integrity complaint. The IC says delegations are irrelevant,” Shaughnessy said during her delegation.

“Hearing delegations was the best part of my elected experience. Delegates are valuable resources for us as councillors. They’re well informed, have expertise, and usually find the time to do the deep dive that most councillors just don’t have the time to do… Maybe he doesn’t like to be questioned or challenged, but that is exactly what your job as councillors is to do. You are here to question.”

In an email to The Pointer, Boghosian maintained that delegations turn “a quasi-judicial process into a political circus where too often supporters of the offending councillor attend to score political points for that councillor.”

“In doing so, it undermines the integrity of the Code of Conduct and investigations thereunder, which has nothing to do with politics,” he wrote.

“Citizens still have plenty of avenues to express their views on my reports in the news media and social media, etc., and I welcome that commentary.”

In Shaughnessy’s opinion, the integrity complaints are “almost always political”, childish and malicious. 

“The complaints absolutely divide Council into us versus them…The only thing complaints do is provide fodder for the next election and headlines. The integrity commissioner says his decisions are not political, of course, but they are because that is the basis for complaints in politics.”

Conacher pointed out that integrity commissioners are typically hired on contract, and those contracts can be ended at any time by council, meaning the role lacks both security and independence.

“This is just a lawyer working on contract. Their contract can be ended at any time by council, and so I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they asked the integrity commissioner to write this letter to back up their wanting to have this.”

Integrity commissioners have, in the past, been let go after making findings that weren’t favourable to council majorities.

In October 2024, Rideau Lakes Township in eastern Ontario offered a stark example of this dynamic, with a divided council voting on four integrity commissioner reports in a single month and dismissing two commissioners in the process. 

One report, made public by council, found that Councillor Linda Carr had sexually harassed a staff member by making an “off-colour” remark before a meeting in 2023 and recommended a 15-day pay suspension. 

The findings were rejected by the majority of the council, who refused to impose the penalty, claiming the allegations were unproven. 

Shortly after, the commissioner who authored the report was dismissed. His replacement, who had recommended sanctions against two other councillors, was also fired.

Boghosian himself was fired by Greater Sudbury City Council in November of 2024, ending his tenure as the city’s integrity commissioner after just over a year in the role. The dismissal came shortly after three code of conduct complaint reports were presented to council, with several councillors criticizing Boghosian’s findings and rejecting key recommendations. 

Councillor Bill Leduc, who moved the motion to terminate Boghosian’s contract, said the reports had become a distraction for both council and the public, and expressed hope that the city could now focus on more pressing issues.

Concerns were raised by multiple council members about the quality and tone of Boghosian’s reports, with some describing them as overly opinionated rather than strictly factual. Councillor Natalie Labbée, who faced a recommendation for a pay suspension over social media comments, dismissed the findings as biased and harmful to reputations.

“That’s why the system is broken. Councillors write their own code of conduct, choose their own commissioner to enforce it, and then decide among themselves what the penalty should be,” Conacher said. 

“It’s a kangaroo court.”

He says the lack of independent oversight is why all municipal integrity complaints should be handled by the provincial integrity commissioner, just as the province currently does for freedom of information appeals.

“If you’re denied access to information by your town, you don’t file a complaint with a commissioner hired by the town. You go to the provincial Information Commissioner,” he said. 

“That model exists for a reason, so the process can be free from local political interference. But when it comes to ethics, it was left in the hands of municipal councils. And now, the system is full of conflicts of interest.”

The proposed bill 9 does little to fix that.

“It still allows councillors to judge each other, write their own codes, and hire their own commissioners,” he said. 

Conacher explained that even if a serious case is referred to the provincial integrity commissioner, that recommendation still comes back to council for a final vote. A councillor can avoid losing their seat if they have just one ally. Or the opposite, where a single councillor trying to do the right thing could be kicked off by a group of unethical ones.

He also questioned whether the push to silence delegations on integrity reports was coming directly from elected officials themselves.

“I’m not surprised to see the commissioner pushing in alignment with what a majority of council [might] want, which is to shut out voters from having any comment on these reports,” Conacher said. Even one or two members, including a mayor, could have undue influence over an integrity commissioner, under the current system.

He emphasized that while decisions on whether a code of conduct has been breached may be reached in a report, council still holds the authority to decide penalties, and the public should have a say in that process.

“If someone is found guilty, the voters should be able to stand up and say, ‘Here’s what we think the penalty should be,’” Conacher said. “If they’re found not guilty, residents should be allowed to say, ‘That’s a loophole. The rules aren’t strong enough.’ That’s democracy.”

For Conacher, the issue is not just about procedural fairness, it’s about protecting democracy itself.

“The public pays these councillors. They’re the employers. And to tell the employer they have no right to speak about misconduct by the people they pay? That’s beyond undemocratic—it’s absurd.”

During the general committee meeting on Tuesday, councillor Mario Russo proposed a motion to refer the integrity commissioner’s recommendation to staff for further investigation rather than rejecting it outright. 

The motion was defeated by a six-to-three vote. Groves supported the unsuccessful motion to have the recommendation considered.

Council members then unanimously voted to reject the integrity commissioner’s recommendation to exclude delegations from the public, marking a clear victory for the community.

“Mayor Groves was visibly upset when the voting took place on Tuesday,” Connors told The Pointer. “She scolded us for bad behaviour, who does she think she is? Given everything this mayor has done to erode democracy over the last two years, should we really celebrate the simple protection of our right just to be allowed to speak in front of her and an integrity commissioner who is hired and fired by the mayor and her council allies, or her hand-picked CAO?”

Email: anushka.yadav@thepointer.com

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