As other B.C. municipalities make the news for council dysfunction, Sechelt council is implementing a new code of conduct.
On Aug. 2, District of Sechelt Council passed three readings of a code of conduct bylaw to replace its five-year-old policy.
The 15-page bylaw covers how council members conduct themselves inside and outside of chambers (though not in their personal lives, except “to the extent that such conduct reasonably undermines public confidence in District governance”) and sets out specific penalties and processes for breaches (which the previous policy did not).
The policy also applies to council members’ personal and professional social media accounts.
The new code is to “provide better clarification on the expectations of council members with respect to conduct” and “provide a clear procedure to address concerns related to conduct,” a staff report from corporate officer Kerianne Poulsen said.
The bylaw sets rules that include staff interactions, public and media interactions, in-meeting conduct, confidential meeting handling, conflict of interest, gifts and use of public resources.
Coun. Dianne McLauchlan was the sole vote against the new bylaw calling it “weaponized,” and saying “it's going to be used against people unfairly.” She said it came out of the blue, is longer than the policy with “a lot of litigious type of things” in it. She said she would like to see more review and consensus.
Coun. Darren Inkster said that they had talked about the code of conduct over a number of months and that council can submit changes and reviews going forward.
Coun. Brenda Rowe credited the length difference to the new document being a bylaw rather than a policy. “I don't have a lot of fear about this because, as far as I know, I'm not undertaking any of the things that would get me in trouble,” she said. “You just have to listen to [CBC reporter Justin] McElroy to know what's going on in this province in different municipalities and I want to see a strong code of conduct.”
"We all took an oath of office to participate in a particular manner and we have respectful workplace policies to back things up," Coun. Alton Toth agreed. "So without any teeth, there's absolutely no point to it at all."
Sechelt chief administrative officer Andrew Yeates said the document was drafted by “one of the top lawyers in the province dealing with codes of conduct” and called it “a fairly standard code of conduct.”
The code of conduct still needs to pass adoption.
