Ontario’s ombudsman has ruled that city councillors in Timmins held an illegal meeting via email last year in which city business was discussed. The meeting in question took place in June 2025 before a special meeting June 24, 2025, interim ombudsman Barbara Finlay wrote in her decision dated Aug. 13. Finlay said she received a formal complaint July 14, 2025. “We spoke with the clerk and reviewed the relevant email correspondence as well as the meeting material, including the minutes, agenda and recording, for council’s June 24, 2025, special meeting,” she said. “My office received full co-operation in this matter.” The illegal meeting centred on discussion about revitalizing Leo Del Villano Park. After the plan was approved June 17 by city council, one councillor emailed the city’s CAO and all but one member of council, seeking a special meeting about the proposal. “Each councillor who received the email responded to the full group of recipients,” Finlay said in her report. “They each expressed support for a special meeting to further discuss the project. Three of the responses shared additional opinions and concerns about the revitalization project.” Email chain Later in the email chain, the city clerk and the councillor who was not originally included were added to the discussion and a special meeting was scheduled for June 24, 2025. No one in the meeting referred to the emails councillors had exchanged before the meeting, and the June 24 meeting adjourned without any vote. In her decision, Finlay said that under Ontario law, a council meeting occurs when a quorum of councillors together discuss city business, express their opinions on city business and try to convince each other to take a position on a local issue. A ‘quorum’ in this case is defined as half of city council being present. “Given that all of council eventually received and participated in the June 20, 2025, email thread, quorum was present throughout the email exchange,” the ombudsman said. “Several council members raised specific concerns about the park revitalization project over email to a quorum of council. These emails exchanged positions about whether to move forward with the project. They were not merely providing information about the project.” Discussions should have been public Since councillors shared opinions and tried to convince each other to take a certain position, Finlay said they had discussions that, by law, they should have had in open session, not in a private email chain. “As this discussion was not open to the public to observe, this was an illegal meeting under the (Municipal Act),” she ruled. Each councillor received a copy of Finlay’s decision and had the opportunity to comment, but “no comments were received.” While found to have held an illegal meeting, the consequences are not severe. Finlay recommended that they be “vigilant” in adhering to the rules in the Municipal Act and that councillors ensure “no council business or decision-making is materially advanced outside of formal meetings, including over electronic written communications, such as email.” Read the full decision here.
