Legal concerns push back Orillia strong mayor powers discussion

Orillia city council’s meeting about Don McIsaac’s strong mayor powers was delayed over legal concerns.

An attempt to dig further into Orillia Mayor Don McIsaac’s newly granted strong mayor powers went nowhere Tuesday night, after a special meeting called to do so, quickly became bogged down by procedural rules.

Six councillors petitioned for a special meeting to take place, in which they would be able to “obtain information from an external lawyer” regarding McIsaac’s strong mayor powers. However, external counsel was not able to attend the meeting, resulting in City Clerk Dan Kirby advising council to adjourn the meeting.

“The context within which the purpose of the meeting was called anticipates a discussion with external counsel,” Kirby said.

Councillor Janet-Lynne Durnford attempted to put forward a motion to suspend the rules of order so that discussion on strong mayor powers could continue. After much discussion, and the advice from Kirby, that was overruled by the mayor, which was largely supported by council.

However, that was to the dismay of the many members of the public in attendance for the meeting, with council chambers packed.

Mayor McIsaac told CTV News council was aware a lawyer was unable to attend Tuesday’s meeting well in advance.

“It wasn’t my call,” the mayor said. “I had asked a couple members of council yesterday (Monday) if they would agree to rescind the petition, they did not, they wanted to go ahead.”

Councillor Jay Fallis, one of the petitioning councillors, said they were aware that proceeding with the meeting might have resulted the way it did, but felt that it was necessary to push forward.

“We were of the opinion that this is an urgent matter and it needed to be addressed as soon as possible,” Fallis said. “We didn’t quite expect there would be this level of challenge.”

On April 7, council voted 7-2 to call for Ontario to rescind the Orillia’s strong mayor powers immediately, after it had been granted to McIsaac temporarily on April 3 as the city attempted to recover from the ice storm. With his first use of his powers, the mayor effectively fired incoming CAO Trevor Lee, the City of Guelph’s former deputy CAO, and replaced him by promoting Orillia’s deputy CAO.

Later that week, the province made the mayors’ powers permanent in an expansion of strong mayor powers to 169 municipalities.

While Tuesday night’s special council meeting never really got started, council did agree that it would seek to set up another meeting next week. Councillors want that to take place at 7 p.m. in order to give the public enough time to attend. Live streaming services, which were also not available Tuesday due to staffing shortages, is also something that councillors have asked for.

A date has not been determined for when the special meeting will take place.