Firm but fair

We received 10 complaints from residents who were concerned about their municipality’s changes to a by-law regarding public conduct. They felt it was unfair that members of the public who were expelled from council meetings could be subject to a trespass order and required to make a public apology.

RESULT: We shared best practices with the municipality to help ensure that the process for expelling people from public meetings was fair. The municipality revised its procedure by-law to permit council to expel someone from a meeting without requiring a trespass order or an apology.