New Westminster’s mayor will be required to take training after the city’s ethics commissioner found his trip to Dubai last year for a climate conference breached the city’s code of conduct.
Ethics commissioner Jennifer Devins appeared before council on Monday to deliver her report about the trip, and to make her recommendation on how council should respond.
Mayor Patrick Johnstone participated in the Local Climate Action Summit as a part of the COP28 UN Climate Change Conference late last year. The trip was fully paid for by the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, a global network of mayors working to fight climate change.
Devins concluded that parts of the trip, including flights, accommodations and meals, constituted a “personal gift” to the mayor. However, she also noted that Johnstone took steps to investigate whether the trip provided benefit to the city and acted promptly to secure advice upon his return.
“The mayor’s breach …of the community charger was occasioned out of inadvertence and a good faith error of judgment,” she concluded, in recommending he get training on his requirements under the community charter.
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Council voted to accept that recommendation, though not before two councillors sought unsuccessfully to have Johnstone face an additional sanction.
Coun. Daniel Fontaine, one of two council members who launched the initial ethics complaint, said Johnstone should be required to donate $5,000 to the Don’t Go Hungry charitable organization to make up for some of the personal benefit he received on the trip.
Fontaine added that he was disappointed that Johnstone had yet to make any public apology over the incident.
“It would have been a nice message to the public that, ‘I get it, I made a mistake and I am prepared to pay back,’” Fontaine said.
“When the public finds out that as of today there is still no apology and there was no interest on the part of council to have the mayor pay back some of the personal benefit he received, I think it’s going to be the public that is disappointed.”
Johnstone, for his part, took to Facebook after the meeting where he issued an apology.
“Not happy it was about me, but happy that our Code of Conduct process works, and that #NewWest Council takes the work of an Ethics Commissioner seriously,” Johnstone wrote.
“I take responsibility for, and apologize for, the error in judgement, and appreciate the EC’s ruling.”
Tasha Henderson, one of the councillors who backed the training recommendation, agreed that an apology was in order.
She said it was understandable that people struggling with the cost of living would question whether travel to attend conferences was of benefit to the city, but that the mayor was motivated to further the city’s work on climate action.
“I think it’s a great honour and speaks to the work we are doing,” she said.
“The mayor was able to bring back $100,000 to further youth climate action, to develop a youth climate action team, to bring along senior staff members who are working on climate to speak to some of the people who are on the forefront of this work across the globe, so I think there is a huge benefit.”
She added that all members of council would benefit from additional training to ensure similar incidents do not occur in the future.
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