824210 Massie Road, RR5

Chatsworth, ON N0H 1G0

July 27, 2015
Municipal Elections Act Review
Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing
Local Government Policy Branch
777 Bay Street, 13th Floor, Toronto ON M5G 2E5

via email (only): mea.info@ontario.ca

Comments on the Municipal Elections Act

Introduction
The Public Consultation Discussion Guide (http://www.mah.gov.on.ca/AssetFactory.aspx?did=10937) states:
We are interested in your experience taking part in Ontario municipal elections. Please answer the
following questions to let us know your views on the municipal election process and how you think we
can improve the Municipal Elections Act. In your responses, you may want to consider:

how the election is run,

rules related to voting,
voter and candidate eligibility,
methods of voting,
the campaign period, including the length of the municipal election campaign.

1. From your experience, what parts of municipal elections in Ontario currently work well?
2. From your perspective, what parts of municipal elections in Ontario should be changed?
3. Is there anything else you want to tell us about your experience with municipal elections?
This brief submission is related to the first and the fifth bullets and the second and third questions, above,
based on my experience in the 2014 election in the Township of Chatsworth where I have lived since 2002.
I found out about this review and request for comments only by accident. If the Ministry intended to advertise
through municipalities, that was not done in this Township. Accordingly, my third and final recommendation
on page 3 has to do with advertising and encouraging public participation in future such reviews.

Background
In order for my recommendations to be understood, it is necessary to put them into context by providing a bit
of background information.
Over the last several years, I became extremely frustrated with the situation whereby Chatsworth was not
providing any information to taxpayers about the joint Chatsworth Georgian Bluffs bio-digester; therefore, I
started a blog for that purpose (https://shininglightonchatsworth.wordpress.com) in September of last year.

Page 1 of 7

The veil of silence draped over the bio-digester by the Mayor and CAO/Clerk of the Township was consistent
with other aspects of public business here. For example, until late last year none of the documents considered
at Council meetings were available to members of the public either before or after meetings except the bare
Agenda (a list of topics with no supporting documents) and approved minutes.
I had been closely following the bio-digester issue since 2012 by which time it was already obvious to any
objective person that the plan to make money by generating electricity with sewage sludge and septic waste
was in shambles in terms of both operation and finance. (If due diligence had been performed at the outset,
Chatsworth would have never pursued this venture, but that is an entirely different matter.)
Since 2012, I did my best to: seek private meetings with the Mayor and CAO/Clerk; attend Council and biodigester meetings when public notice was provided; ask questions; send letters to the Mayor and Council; send
letters to the media; prepare analyses, reports and presentations; and file FOI requests, all of which I posted
on my blog. By and large, I have done my best to continue to be positive and constructive.
None of this made any perceptible difference the silence continued. Therefore, I continued into the election
campaign of 2014 with the goal of providing as much information as possible to electors information that
had been intentionally kept out of public view in the hope that the problems denied and avoided by the
Mayor and CAO/Clerk would eventually be brought to light and addressed.
Finally, note that the Township of Chatsworth has only about 7,000 residents. The farm and small-town
environment results in many more people knowing one another and having friendships through community
and sports events, churches and local businesses than is often the case in urban settings. Therefore, there is a
far greater probability here of conflicts of interest and non-neutrality than in urban parts of the province.

All Candidates Meeting Arranged by Chatsworth CAO/Clerk Moore

There was only one All Candidates meeting in the Township of Chatsworth for the 2014 election; it was held on
the evening of October 2, 2014. I believe that another meeting was conducted by a citizens group in the
southern part of the Township, but understand that not all candidates attended.
The Moderator of the official All Candidates meeting on October 2, 2014 was not neutral, a fact to which
two other citizens in attendance and I objected in writing.
Appendix A, attached, contains a copy of my email to the CAO/Clerk and copies of two other emails to the
CAO/Clerk which were provided to me; all of these were about the non-neutrality of the Moderator. I do not
know whether there were any other emails to CAO/Clerk Moore or others about this or any other matter.
I do not know whether CAO/Clerk Moore replied to the emails from the other two people. He did not reply to
my email sent to him on the afternoon of October 6, 2014. I do not know whether Mr. Moore has yet prepared
the report on the election he referred to in his email to me on the morning of October 6, 2014, but I have seen
no reference to it in any Council Agenda package or Minutes since then.
For the record, I have never been introduced to the Moderator of the October 2, 2014 meeting (Mr. Elliot). I
understand that Mr. Elliots attendance at Council meetings over the last 4 years has been mainly related to
business of the Chatsworth Township Police Board of which he is the Chair.
Page 2 of 7

To the best of my recollection, Mr. Elliot attended one and possibly two Council meetings in 2013 and/or 2014
at which I was scheduled to make presentations related to the bio-digester; I do not know how he found out
about these presentations since both of these were before the time when Council Agenda packages were
made public. At one meeting, Mr. Elliot spoke in support of the Mayor in a general way, without specifics.
I have attended all but one bio-digester management board meeting in the last approximately three years; I
have never seen Mr. Elliot at any of these meetings.
Therefore, I do not know how Mr. Elliot came to fear that I was about to deliver a sermon when I
approached the microphone at the All Candidates meeting on October 2, 2014, and, as a result, treat me
differently from every other person who rose to speak. Clearly, Mr. Elliot had had prior discussions with the
Mayor about using the All Candidates meeting to speak about another matter (this is referred to by the writer
of the third letter that I posted on my blog on October 10, 2014 and that is contained in Appendix A).

Recommendations
1. The Municipal Elections Act should be explicit about the requirement for rigorous neutrality on the
part of the Municipal Clerk and each and every other person he or she engages to participate in the
election process. This is especially important in small rural communities in which there is a far greater
probability than in urban areas of conflict of interest and non-neutrality as a result of relationships and
friendships developed through community, church, business and sport-related activities.
2. The Municipal Elections Act should require the Municipal Clerk to file a report within 30 days after an
election, such report to be made available to the public and provided as an information item at or
before the final meeting of an out-going Council and at the first meeting of the incoming Council.
3. The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing should advertise reviews such as this in ways other than
voluntarily through municipalities; alternatively, the Municipal Elections Act should be amended to
require municipalities to advertise the Ministrys request for public input to possible changes in
legislation.
Respectfully submitted,
INFORMATION COPY
Original Signed by

Trevor E. Falk
Chatsworth, Ontario
Cc

The Honourable Ted McMeekin

Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing
Via email (only): minister.mah@ontario.ca

Attachment: Appendix A
Page 3 of 7

Appendix A
Township of Chatsworth All Candidates Meeting held on October 2, 2014
Copies of posts on October 8 and 10, 2014
at https://shininglightonchatsworth.wordpress.com/ (under the Election tab)
but with dates and other minor additions for clarity (identified by this font underlined)

Posted October 8, 2014 All-Candidates Meeting in Williamsford on October 2, 2014

The Moderator for the all-candidates meeting on Thursday evening was Mr. R. Elliot, a resident of Chatsworth.
About half-way through the meeting, I rose to ask a question of the Mayor about the lack of transparency,
especially regarding the financial picture of the bio-digester and the businesses on the Sunset Strip (in the
Township of Georgian Bluffs) being subsidised by Chatsworth taxpayers.
Before I was able to say anything, the Moderator reminded me to ask a question. He interrupted twice in
about the first 20 seconds of my preamble to provide further instructions to me: Ask your question.
The next day (October 3, 2014), I sent this email to (CAO/Clerk) Will Moore:
Hello Will,
I assume you hired the moderator for last nights meeting, and further that his instructions were to
conduct the meeting in a neutral and unbiased manner. Please advise if these assumptions are
correct.
Did you provide any other advice or directions to him, and if so, what were they?
Assuming that you did not instruct him to treat me differently from every other person who
approached the microphone, please confirm that he decided to do so entirely of his own volition and if
so, what you have already done (or intend to do) about it.
I would appreciate a response to this email by 4:00 pm on Monday, October 6, 2014.
Thanks in advance,
Trevor
++++++++++

Page 4 of 7

Around noon on Monday (October 6), Mr. Moore sent this reply to me by email:
Good Morning Trevor,
Mr. Elliot hosted at my request. He came highly recommended and respected. He was not paid. His
instructions were to lay out the framework (3 minute speeches and then questions from the floor). He
was to thank the candidates for putting their names forward and to ask the audience to show respect
toward them.
From my discussion with Mr. Elliot after the event he indicated that when he saw you approach the
microphone with a book he wanted to reinforce that the meeting was intended for questions and not,
in his words, a sermon.
When I report to Council part of my recommendation will be that the municipality encourage local
organizations to host candidate meetings in the future. I apologize if you feel singled out.
Will Moore,
Returning Officer
++++++++++
Here is my reply to Mr. Moore sent early on that same afternoon:
Good afternoon Will,
Thanks for the response, and for your apology. You need to know, though, that I didnt feel singled out
by Mr. Elliot I was singled out. There is a difference.
I know now that I am not the only person to object to irregularities in the way Mr. Elliot conducted
the meeting. I understand that there have been written objections to Mr. Elliot providing a platform
at the end for Mayor Pringle, and to the fact that Mr. Elliot used time during the meeting to squelch
any suggestions from candidates that change with respect to policing is possible. More fundamentally,
I now know that one or more people have expressed the view that Mr. Elliot should have been
disqualified from consideration as a neutral moderator by virtue of his present appointment.
The Municipal Elections Act, 1996 gives you very wide powers for exercising judgment as to how to
conduct an election. Even so, it is difficult for me to see how encouraging local organizations to host
candidate meetings in the future as suggested in your email would, in and of itself, meet a reasonable
test of Section 13(2) which says: The clerk shall provide electors, candidates and persons who are
eligible to be electors with information to enable them to exercise their rights under this Act (my
emphasis in bold). I agree with you that more all-candidates meetings would be better; however, trying
to duck the issue (like you seem to be suggesting) could easily create more work and more problems
than simply putting some clear guidelines in place to ensure neutrality.
Page 5 of 7

The implication throughout the Act is that you carry out all of your responsibilities in an absolutely
neutral, unbiased manner. Arguably, this was not the case with regard to all aspects of the
arrangements you made for the all-candidates meeting on Thursday.
In the circumstances, you might consider posting a statement on the Chatsworth website to the effect
that you did not give the matter of a neutral moderator sufficient thought before inviting Mr. Elliot to
perform that service. In addition, it may be appropriate for you to suggest to Mr. Elliot that you would
also post an apology from him for not remaining strictly neutral as people who attended the meeting
had the right to expect. As you know, I am not a lawyer so I dont know what precedents might have
been established by the Superior Court of Justice regarding Controverted Elections (Section 83 of the
Act), but a statement from you and an apology from Mr. Elliot might preclude difficulties down the
road.
Yours truly,
Trevor
++++++++++
I have permission from Mr. E. Neelands to post the contents of his email to Mr. Moore late on Friday
afternoon (October 10):
Hi Will,
Im still burning as a result of:
1) the moderators treatment of Trevor Falk;
2) the moderator as a municipal representative on the Police Board being asked to act in this neutral
position;
3) the moderator taking up time to speak on behalf of the Board and therefore denying people the
opportunity to pose questions at the conclusion of the meeting and
4) the moderator asking the incumbent mayor for closing remarks.
It stinks! Our township is made up of fine people who do not deserve this partisan and petty approach
to democracy.
I was delighted to see such a wonderful turn-out at this all-candidates meeting. I believe that it was in
large part due to Mr. Falks efforts in bringing the Biodidgester Boondoggle to our attention through
the media.

Page 6 of 7

Posted Oct 10, 2014 Another protest letter to Will Moore about the All-Candidates meeting
A resident of Chatsworth sent a copy of the following email to me with a request that his/her name not be
revealed.
Dear Mr. Moore:
I was dismayed by several incidents surrounding the moderator at the All-Candidates meeting last
week.
1. I know that Trevor Falk has been an outspoken critic of the biodigester situation, but I felt that Mr.
Elliots insistence that Mr. Falk stick to posing a question, before Mr. Falk had even opened his mouth,
was uncalled for. The time to have reprimanded Mr. Falk was when or indeed if he had demonstrated
that he was not going to stick to posing a question. Mr. Elliots tone and body posture was aggressive
to the point of intimidation.
2. It was out of line to call upon Mr. Elliot to comment on matters relating to the police services board.
This was a forum in which political candidates were being assessed on their grasp of municipal issues.
For an incumbent to give the floor to a supposedly unbiased, non-candidate moderator, and for that
moderator to offer his comments, was questionable at best.
3. Mr. Elliots final act of handing the meeting over to an incumbent candidate to comment on matters
which had not been raised in any question from the floor was inappropriate.
I would respectfully request that these issues be examined in the hope that similar situations can be
avoided in future.
Sincerely,
(name)

Page 7 of 7