'An outrageous affront to democracy': Surrey City Council to consider pausing new ethics complaints until October election

Surrey City Council is set to consider a bylaw amendment to pause new ethics complaints for most of this year, ahead of the municipal election.

A motion listed on Monday night’s agenda says the proposed bylaw would “suspend the processing and investigation of complaints by the Surrey Ethics Commissioner in the period leading up to the 2022 Local General Election, effective Jan. 31, 2022.”

Coun. Jack Hundial, who pushed for Surrey to create the ethics commissioner’s office in 2019, described the proposal as “disturbing.”

“I was actually really disappointed, and I think it really goes at the heart of democracy,” Hundial said, adding he believes the motion will be “aggressively debated.”

Fellow councillor Doug Elford told CTV News in an email the proposal is “not out of the ordinary,” and only new to B.C. because Surrey was the first jurisdiction to establish an Ethics Commissioner office. Elford added that other cities have moratoriums in place in election years.

By comparison, Edmonton’s Integrity Commissioner did indeed suspend investigations in the lead up to the city’s 2021 municipal election, coming into effect 90 days before the October vote. If Surrey council passes the motion Monday night, the suspension would come into effect eight months ahead of the election.

Hundial acknowledged other cities had made the same move, but said none have done so this far out from an election.

“It’s not uncommon to suspend investigations during the writ period, or leading up to the writ period, which is basically the election period. But certainly not for the whole year of election going into it,” Hundial said.

Bill Tieleman, a strategist with Surrey Police Vote, said his organization has lodged a complaint with the Ethics Commissioner against Mayor Doug McCallum over three issues, including that McCallum is using taxpayer funds to pay for the lawyer in his public mischief case.

“It’s really an outrageous affront to democracy that this is even being discussed,” Tieleman said, adding he fears the investigation of his organization’s complaint will be delayed.

“The concern that we have is A, for our own complaint, which is a significant one, but B, the other complaints we don’t know about and those that might yet be made by Surrey residents.”

If all councilors vote Monday night, the motion is likely to be passed by a 5-4 split. But Coun. Linda Annis questions whether everyone should be allowed to vote.

“I don't know who else might also be being investigated by the Ethics Commissioner. We don’t know, so it would mean that whoever was being investigated would have to recuse themselves,” Annis said. “I’m extremely disappointed that this is coming forward.”