Why the Premier and Mayor think a Winnipeg city councillor should step down

Mayor Scott Gillingham thinks it's time Manitoba did the same.

I'm hearing from members of the public when I'm out at events like Folklorama and other events that I'm at that they're concerned that this is serious.

I've had people tell me they want me to take more action.

And I say, well, we're taking all the action we can.

I brought forward a motion, it was supported by Council, to remove the member in question right now from all the committees that we could and had the power to remove him from.

But our powers and authorities are limited under the current charter right now.

Again, I want to stress this council member is presumed innocent until proven otherwise.

Everyone with an alleged, that is charged and needs to have their day in court.

But there's got to be a balance in that city council members and the mayor need to be able to have the tools to deal with matters in the severity that we should be dealing with them in.

This is a distracting matter for council at this time.

The people of Winnipeg deserve that Mayor and Council are able to give their full attention to the work that they've elected us to do.

The severity of these charges, again, the individual is presumed innocent until proven otherwise, so I acknowledge that.

But the types of charges we're talking about here, the serious nature of these charges, makes for really a distracted atmosphere in many cases here at Council right now.

So what exact changes do you want?

What we're looking for is to see the Winnipeg Charter change so that Council has more tools to deal with members in serious cases such as what we're talking about today.

For example, in many workplaces, if an employee was facing such charges, there's always the presumption of innocence.

But in the intervening time, until the charges make their way through courts, people are put on administrative leave.

You know, Council, we don't have that ability to make that decision, even if we wanted to make that decision as one example.

And so I believe it's time for the Charter to be reviewed, to be modernized, and for other measures, if possible, to be put in place that would give Council more tools to deal with a member in a case like this.

The public should have full confidence in the people that they elect.

And so we need to be able to make sure that we, even as a council, are doing our utmost to maintain the standard of council members and get the council work done.

you know the the charter could be amended perhaps in ways that would automatically you know um kind of uh dull consequences that were as it were depending on the circumstances i think that's where there needs to be time for due diligence to be done in a review of the charter to see what could could be changed to really meet the needs that that the council is asking for It's time for the Charter to be reviewed and updated.

I think we could also, in working with the province, look at what other jurisdictions are doing to see if there's any best practices elsewhere.