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editionap.ca
Province keeping “hands off” C-R council case
support a resolution to the legislature for amendments to the Municipal Act to force council members facing criminal charges to recuse themselves until their cases were concluded. “It’s premature to be involved from a pro- vincial perspective,” said Crack. “What we’re looking at from a provincial perspective is to let the process unfold.” Mayor Marcel Guibord and Councillors Di- ane Choinière and Guy Félio face charges of breach of trust. Local lawyer and developer Stéphane J. Lalonde is charged with them on breach of trust and he is also charged with counselling to commit breach of trust. The charges resulted from a two-year OPP
investigation regarding numerous emails that the mayor had claimed were stolen from his computer and later published on Facebook. The alleged email exchange took place following the 2010 civic election and many detail discussions between the four accused about how to force the removal of Daniel Gatien who was the city’s chief ad- ministrator at the time. At the time Gatien was pursuing a defamation lawsuit against Lalonde, a former business partner of the mayor. Police determined that no hacking or theft of emails was involved, and that the person who published them on Facebook had legal access to them. The OPP inves-
tigation then switched to the content of the emails and that resulted in the charges against the four accused. A first appearance appointment was scheduled in provincial court in L’Orignal Oct. 23 for the four or their legal counsel to answer to the charges. Right now the Ontario Municipal Act and Municipal Conflict of Interest Act do not re- quire municipal council members to step down if they are accused of a crime. Convic- tion for a crime may demand removal from office but only if the accused face incarcera- tion. Lesser penalties, such as fines, do not require removal from office though any council member convicted may choose to do so voluntarily.
GREGGCHAMBERLAIN gregg.chamberlain@eap.on.ca
ROCKLAND | The mayor of Clarence-Rock- land and two of his councillors had their first court date scheduled this week to answer breach of trust charges. For now the provincial government is adopting a “wait-and-see” position on the matter. That is what the Liberal MPP for Glengar- ry-Prescott-Russell reported when quizzed about the situation. During an Oct. 17 in- terview Grant Crack dismissed rumours that he was planning to either introduce or
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