District of North Vancouver council is taking steps to address potential ethical lapses and legal risks stemming from conflicts of interest – fallout from the so-called pigeongate scandal.
Council hired British Columbia's former information and privacy commissioner David Loukidelis in 2019 to investigate and make recommendations after it came to light that Coun. Betty Forbes lobbied her council allies behind the scenes to pass a bylaw banning pet pigeons, despite declaring herself in a conflict of interest and leaving the council debate at the time of its passing. The only known keeper of pigeons in the district was Forbes’ neighbour, which Forbes had long complained to the district about, the Loukidelis report found.
The validity of that bylaw is being challenged.The municipality along with Forbes and Coun. Lisa Muri, who moved the original motion, are now facing lawsuits in B.C. Supreme Court.
Loukidelis made 12 recommendations to avoid similar flaps in the future including updating the district’s code of ethics for council members, adding more conflict of interest training for new council members and candidates, making sure any legal opinions a council member gets regarding conflict of interest matters are also shared with the district’s CAO, and having senior staff vet reports from council members before they are added to a meeting agenda.
Council voted Monday night to begin implementing the recommendations.
But, with the bylaw facing a legal challenge in court, and Forbes and Muri facing conflict of interest allegations that could see them removed from office, district CAO David Stuart cautioned council against saying anything that could put the district at risk of losing those cases – including publicly discussing the facts of the report as Loukidelis wrote them.
That did not satisfy some members of council.
“Without having that discussion about what the elephant in the room is, it is not doing what we intended with the report. The intent of the report is to rebuild trust about a process that a significant amount of the public felt was flawed,” said Coun. Mathew Bond.
Coun. Megan Curren, who voted in favour of the original pigeon ban, agreed and said she would be seeking the CAO’s advice on how they should go about repealing the pigeon ban.
“This situation has made many people including myself uncomfortable,” she said. “I think we need to be able to talk about the issue at hand.”
Coun. Jim Hanson said changes appeared to be mostly common sense, but he added that it falls to council members to ensure they never find themselves accused of conflict.
“I caution all of us to understand that no amount of education nor refinement of systems can substitute for our personal responsibility that each of us hold – that we must assume as councillors to ensure that we do not act in a manner that creates the appearance that any kind of private interest is influencing our decision making,” he said.
Coun. Jordan Back questioned whether he and other council members had lacked appropriate ethics training, but he said adopting the recommendations would go part of the way to restoring council’s damaged reputation.
“As elected officials, we are rightfully held to a higher standard than the general public when it comes to showing transparency when dealing with matters of public interest. And I think based on the timeline and the facts that are in this report, it's clear that the criticism cast from this community upon this council was well deserved,” he said. “I’ll just close by saying that we were elected to serve our community and not to settle disputes with our neighbours.”
Forbes, who has said very little about about the matter publicly, supported the changes.
“I wish that some of the recommendations we had had in our current process before this situation,” she said.
In their responses to the legal petition seeking their removal from office, Forbes and Muri denied any wrongdoing and sought to have the petitions thrown out on the grounds they fell short on several statutory requirements.
According to the lawyer representing the petitioners, they are hoping to have the case before a judge this December.
