Councillors walk out on Rick Chiarelli, the darkest cloud over stormy term
Chiarelli remaining in office is 1 of several signs council governs at whim of province
For the last meeting of a particularly difficult term of Ottawa city council, it lacked a certain amount of closure.
The meeting should have provided outgoing council members an opportunity to reflect on what it means to serve in public office, to try to build a city, and to reach across the divides of the past four years.
Diane Deans tried.
The Gloucester-Southgate councillor had a particularly tough term — she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and her bid to run for mayor was scuttled after a now-infamous council meeting where she was turfed as the chair of the police board.
She told CBC at the end of last summer that she had felt betrayed by her colleagues. In fact, Wednesday's meeting was the first one Deans attended in person since that option returned in March.
But after 28 years on council, Deans wanted to say a proper goodbye — and it was a classy one.
She talked about how she didn't realize when she was first elected the passion she'd develop for the city, nor how much council can do "in terms of changing lives and setting a new direction for a city."
And while she alluded to citywide tragedies, "personal animosity that really reached a crescendo," and some low points for her, Deans said she wasn't going to dwell on those.
Instead she recalled a fun moment when she and Coun. Eli El-Chantiry — the councillor who replaced her on the police board — turned council chambers into a scene from Grease to launch the United Way annual fundraising campaign.
She joked El-Chantiry, also departing council after 19 years, had no rhythm and might want to take lessons now that he had more time on his hands.
Deans recalled moments she was most proud of, including approving North America's first smoke-free bylaw for public spaces and building the first public library in her ward. She thanked the "unsung heroes" in the city staff who "carry a heavy burden," and her own office staff over the years.
She ended her five minutes by wishing the incoming councillors well and reminding them they are stronger with their work together.
Deans helped to provide a proper sense of occasion.
But no one else was to have that chance.
The next councillor who stepped forward to make a final statement was Rick Chiarelli, although he was doing so virtually.
While family members stood behind him and he began to recite his own list of accomplishments, one by one, councillors left the table.
Soon, Mayor Jim Watson had to interrupt to say the meeting had lost quorum (although Chiarelli's family urged him to keep speaking).
Suddenly, the meeting was adjourned.
No other outgoing councillors were able to speak. Not even Watson, who is leaving after a historic 12 consecutive years at the head of council, was able to give a final address.
WATCH | The walkout ends the meeting:
It appears that, for the first time in recent memory, no formal remarks were planned for outgoing council members specifically not to give Chiarelli a platform — especially on the day he was sanctioned a third time for harassing and bullying a former female staffer in the most shocking allegations to date.
- Rick Chiarelli docked another 90 days pay on his way out of council
- 'Almost like being in an abusive relationship': Shocking new allegations about Rick Chiarelli
But like the last three years, on Wednesday there was no side-stepping the dark cloud that is Chiarelli during this particularly stormy term of council.
This term hasn't lacked for crises — the worst being COVID-19 — but usually there was a way for council to handle it.
The pandemic, which caused hardship on many levels, was met with public health measures and vaccinations. The truck convoy protests were cleared by thousands of police officers. Even the LRT is improving (or at least hasn't derailed recently).
But Chiarelli remained an unfinished piece of business.
Since the 2019 allegations that he harassed female job applicants and former staff members in bizarre and manipulative ways, many councillors have been frustrated by the limitations of their ability to respond.
Council pushed the envelope of what it could do. Including the sanctions imposed on Wednesday, council has docked Chiarelli 540 days (or about 77 weeks) of pay — 90 days for each of the six formal complaints against him, the harshest penalty available.
Council passed a motion demanding he resign immediately, to no avail. His colleagues removed him from committees and took away his authority to hire staff or spend his own office budget.
But Chiarelli went nowhere. He even won a moral victory at court when a judicial panel found that council had acted in a biased manner toward him by standing in protest at a public council meeting before the integrity commissioner's first report was released.
Coun. Theresa Kavanagh, the council liaison for women and gender equity issues, was one of the few not to stand those three years ago on the advice of the city's lawyer.
On Wednesday, she was one of the many councillors who spontaneously did so when Chiarelli began to speak.
"We're going on a very low note," she told CBC after Wednesday's meeting.
"It was too much to listen to the history of somebody who we didn't fully know, we didn't realize what was going on … We want to say goodbye to council colleagues, but this was a case of somebody who put a black spot on our council.
"It was very difficult, very emotional."
Provincial restraints
The case of Chiarelli is one of a number of recent stark reminders of how relatively few powers the municipality has to govern itself.
In recent months, Ford's provincial government has unilaterally imposed strong mayor powers on Ottawa's city council and is on its way to passing a controversial housing bill that will hamstring council's ability to plan the city.
As for the ability to deal more harshly with council members who are found to have harassed staff or colleagues, the province has dragged its feet to change the rules.
Orléans MPP Stephen Blais has twice tabled a private members bill that calls for an integrity commissioner to refer the most egregious cases of harassment to a judge, who would then decide if a municipally elected member of office should be turfed.
Blais's bill made it to second reading earlier this year, but it died on the floor of Queen's Park when the election writ was issued. The MPP, who used to sit on council with Chiarelli, has re-introduced his bill and it's scheduled to be debated next spring.
In the meantime, Chiarelli will serve his last day in office on Monday, leaving mostly on his own terms, with some sort of government pension.
In the statement he planned to read at council — and that he posted online — Chiarelli does not even mention the allegations made against him by many women.
He has always denied the accusations, even though two integrity commissioners and a panel of judges found them credible.
It seems highly unlikely that the outgoing College ward representative will be issuing an apology to the women he's harmed, as council has mandated.
All that councillors can do at this point is to walk away, one last time.
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