City council rejects appointing Coun. Chu to committees

Calgary city council has voted to not appoint Ward 4 Coun. Sean Chu to a couple of its key committees.

The last council changed the rules, requiring that all councillors sit on either the new community development committee or the infrastructure and planning committee.

However, as council gathered Monday for its first organizational meeting where committee assignments were sorted out, Ward 9 Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra suggested a change.

He asked council to decide that notwithstanding the existing rule, it should decide to not appoint Chu to either committee.

Most of council has called for Chu to resign his seat.

This followed revelations during the election campaign by CBC News that Chu was reprimanded by the Calgary Police Service for having inappropriate physical contact with a 16-year-old girl in 1997 while he was a police officer.

Council members, including Mayor Jyoti Gondek, say Chu resigning from council would be the honourable thing to do. But he has refused.

Council voted 9-6 to approve the change which would allow it to not appoint Chu to the two standing policy committees.

Instead, Carra was named to both committees with all other members of council except Chu getting one committee appointment.

Carra said he was okay with taking on the extra work.

"This is a censure that council can undertake in the absence of him doing what so many of us have stated is the right thing to do, which is to resign," said Carra.

'We have very limited abilities'

For her part, Gondek said that like any member of council, Chu is welcome to attend and take part in any committee meetings.

"This was an effort by council to do what they could. We have very limited abilities and powers as a council. We exercised one of those today," said the mayor.

Chu was critical of the move, saying he's not aware of any need to sanction him. He pointed out there have been no complaints filed against him for violating council's code of conduct.

"I believe that if taking me out of any standing policy committee is improper. That basically we are slapping the electors on the face, in Ward 4," said Chu.

Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot said he could not support the decision to exclude Chu from the committees.

He said Chu was dealt with by the police and there were no criminal charges brought against him, based on the evidence.

Chabot noted he served four years with Chu on council from 2013 to 2017.

"And during that four years, my experience with Coun. Chu was nothing but exemplary and above reproach. His actions in the past I believe were fully investigated," he said.

Chu was overlooked for all of those appointments as well, although like any councillor, he is free to attend any of the council committee meetings.

Council did approve a deputy mayor roster for the next 14 months. Chu will serve as deputy mayor in the month of December 2022.