Council cleared of wrongdoing by ombudsman

In a letter dated February 13, 2024 and presented to council earlier this week, J. Paul Dube, the ombudsman for the province of Ontario, completely cleared council of an accusation made by a member of the public that council held “illegal meetings” regarding the implementation of the new short-term rental bylaw (STR).

For readers unfamiliar with the roles and powers of the ombudsman, they are many. The office has the authority to conduct impartial reviews and investigations of hundreds of public sector bodies. This includes municipalities, local boards, and municipally-controlled corporations, as well as provincial government organizations, publicly funded universities, and school boards. In addition, the ombudsman has authority to review complaints about the services provided by children’s aid societies and residential licensees, and the provision of French language services under the French Language Services Act.

Some municipalities have their own in-house ombudsman that the public can send their concerns to. Many smaller municipalities have decided not to create this position, and the Municipal Act, 2001 designates the Ontario ombudsman as the default investigator for municipalities like Kawartha Lakes who have not appointed their own.

Dube and his investigators spent many weeks looking into the complaint.

“My office received a complaint that the City of Kawartha Lakes’ Short Term Rental Licensing Program task force may have held illegal meetings between April and June 2023,” Dube wrote in his decision to council, “as the task force was developing a by-law to license, regulate, and govern short-term rental accommodations.”

“The complaint alleged that three changes to the bylaw were not discussed or agreed upon at open meetings of the task force, indicating that they must have been discussed at informal meetings instead,” Dube continued. “These changes concerned occupancy limits, licensing and inspections, and inspection compliance. Our review of the matter revealed no evidence of an illegal meeting relating to the development of the bylaw having taken place.”

Dube wrote that his office reached their decisions clearing the municipality of any wrongdoing after reviewing the meeting documents for all task force meetings between April and May 2023, the June 6, 2023 meeting of the Committee of the Whole, and the June 20, 2023 meeting of council. The ombudsman also reviewed the relevant sections of the Municipal Act, 2001, the city’s procedure bylaw, and the draft and final versions of the city’s bylaw to license, regulate and govern short-term rental accommodation.

“Finally, we spoke with the city clerk (Cathie Ritchie) and obtained additional information from the manager for Municipal Law Enforcement and Licensing (Aaron Sloan),” Dube wrote. “The complainant identified certain sections of the bylaw pertaining to occupancy limits, licensing and inspections, and inspection compliance that they believed were not discussed in open session, indicating that they were instead discussed during closed meetings. The clerk told us that she was not aware of any gathering of the task force outside of its formal meetings.”

“With respect to the changes made to the bylaw identified by the complainant, the clerk and the manager pointed us to excerpts of task force meeting minutes that indicated that these changes were the subject of open session discussions.   The clerk explained that these matters would also typically be circulated to staff for input during a by-law development process,” Dube wrote.

The ombudsman’s decision is expected to clear any remaining obstacles to the full implementation of the new Kawartha Lakes STR bylaw for summer 2024.