New Westminster city council won’t be asking Mayor Patrick Johnstone to report back on his recent trip to Dubai – but it will request a workshop with the city’s new ethics commissioner.
During an hour-long discussion in council chambers on Monday night, council considered a motion from Coun. Daniel Fontaine related to a “full accounting and report back to council” regarding Johnstone’s trip to Dubai, United Arab Emirates in early December.
Johnstone attended the Jan. 22 meeting, but recused himself when it was time for council to consider Fontaine’s motion.
“The information I received from staff is that I actually have an non-pecuniary conflict interest in matters involved with this notice of motion, and it has been recommended to me by (legal) counsel that I recuse myself from this portion of the council meeting in order to comply with Section 100 of the (Community) Charter,” Johnstone said, when the item came up for discussion. “So I am going to turn it over the chairing of the meeting to the acting mayor who is Coun. (Jaimie) McEvoy.”
Fontaine said Johnstone did “the right thing” by recusing himself from the discussion, but added it was unfortunate as he wouldn’t be able to respond to questions related to the motion.
Fontaine’s motion asked council to have the mayor report back to council about the details of his recent business trip to Dubai. It also asked that the report include the following information:
- A detailed breakdown of the financial costs pertaining to the trip, including meals, flights, hotel accommodations, ground transportation.
- A detailed summary of what the third-party funder offered the mayor’s office, by way of free trips to Dubai for himself, members of his family or city staff
- A day-by-day itinerary of all meetings and events attended by the mayor while in Dubai.
- The estimated carbon footprint of attending the Dubai conference in person, rather than virtually.
- A summary of the direct benefits to the City of New Westminster of the mayor’s delegation to Dubai.
Fontaine said he brought the motion was forward to shed some light on the sponsorship regarding the mayor’s trip to Dubai for the COP28 conference, which is “funded by some of the largest international corporations and foreign governments.”
“This motion is about openness and transparency, and shedding a lot more light on what transpired leading up to and during the trip in Dubai,” he said.
Fontaine said his motion is about ensuring that the City of New Westminster does not suddenly become labelled “as one of those secretive, closed, and out-of-sight municipal governments in B.C.” He said there is “universal support” in council chamber about the need for the city to tackle climate change.
“This motion … is about the three Ps – process, procedures and policies. It's about learning how those three Ps were applied,” he said.
Most councillors opposed the motion as they felt it was singling out one specific conference attended by one member of council.
Coun. Tasha Henderson said all members of council attended last year’s Union of B.C. Municipalities conference, which was sponsored by large oil and gas corporations. She said those organizations are also very clear about their objectives to lobby and influence elected officials.
“No eyebrows were raised,” she said. “To my knowledge, no one asked my council colleague and I to provide the tangible benefits of flying to Toronto to attend FCM (Federation of Canadian Municipalities convention) last year, nor did either of us produce a report.”
Henderson said she couldn’t help but wonder why a climate conference is causing a reaction and getting more scrutiny than other conferences.
That comment resulted in one of numerous “point of orders” from several councillors at the meeting.
In this instance, Fontaine said the comment was “impugning” motive and suggesting that neither he nor Minhas, who seconded the motion, are concerned about climate change.
“That wasn't my inference,” Henderson replied. “My inference is that this particular conference has more scrutiny than any other conference than any of us have attended in 15 months.”
Henderson went on to say council members have received ample information about the conference.
“The questions here have all been asked and answered multiple times in our inboxes alone,” she said. “There has been more reported out from this conference than from any other councillor or the mayor, in anything that we have attended since the beginning of our term.”
If council members believe a procedure needs to be introduced about having council members provide feedback after attending education sessions, Henderson said that’s a conversation that may be worth having. In this case, she said a report from the mayor isn’t necessary because council has received responses to all of the questions included in the motion.
In response to Henderson’s comments, Fontaine called another point of order, suggesting council needs to move its meeting incamera if that type of discussion continued.
He also said it’s a “red herring” to compare the mayor’s trip to Dubai to council members’ attendance at the Union of BC Municipaliteies, as council’s attendance at the UBCM was funded through an approved council budget.
Following a sometimes tense debate, council voted 4-2 against Fontaine’s motion to seek a report from the mayor. Fontaine and Minhas, the two New West Progressives on council, supported the motion, while councillors Ruby Campbell, Henderson, McEvoy and Nadine Nakagawa opposed.
Nakagawa said she doesn’t want people to have the impression that council doesn’t have information about the mayor’s trip.
“I received an abundance of information actually, from the mayor, responding to many – most I would say – of these questions. And that was in an email copy to all of council,” she said. “So I'm actually, for myself, surprised that this motion wasn't removed, based on the fact that we have received this information; I do find it is redundant. And it reinforces again, that this isn't actually about the process or the questions, it is about individuals and targeting individuals.”
Motion approved
The bulk of the debate in council chambers around Fontaine’s motion centred on the request for information from the mayor about his trip to Dubai.
Council voted to “sever” the motion into two parts – voting 4-2 against two parts of the motion related to having the mayor report back on his trip.
A third part of Fontaine’s motion asked that the city’s new ethics commissioner be requested to conduct a workshop with council regarding the Community Charter, with a particular emphasis on section 105, which pertains to restrictions imposed on municipal officials regarding the acceptance of gifts.
Council voted 5-0 in favour of a slightly altered version of Fontaine’s motion related to a workshop with the ethics commissioner. That amendment to Fontaine’s motion, put forward by Nakagawa, is to request a workshop with the new ethics commissioning on council’s Code of Conduct, including Section 105 of the Community Charter.
