Ontario's Premier Accountability Dashboard · Queen's Park Watch
John Mascarin
Municipal law specialist and partner at Aird & Berlis LLP. Publicly called Bill 9's councillor-removal mechanism "fatally flawed" because it leaves the final removal decision to a unanimous vote of council rather than a judge.
Connected Scandals
Bill 9, branded the "Municipal Accountability Act," strips municipalities of the power to write their own codes of conduct and creates a councillor-removal process that requires a near-unanimous vote of the sitting council — a threshold the lawyer who literally wrote Ontario's leading municipal law text calls "fatally flawed."
Called Bill 9's removal mechanism "incredibly flawed, fatally flawed," saying a councillor recommended for removal by both Integrity Commissioners needs only one council ally to keep their seat, and that he doubts anyone will ever be removed under the law.