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2 - Orono Weekly Times Subscriptions $38.09 + $1.91 GST = $40.00 per year. No Refunds. Publishing 48 issues annually at the office of publication. "We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Publications Assistance Program (PAP) toward our mailing costs." Wednesday, February 10, 2010 ORONO WEEKLY TIMES - 5310 Main St., P.O. Box 209, Orono, ON L0B 1M0 E-mail: oronotimes@rogers.com or Phone/Fax: 905-983-5301 Publisher/Editor Margaret Zwart Production and Display Advertising - Roxanne Johnston Classified Advertising - Sue Weigand The Orono Weekly Times welcomes letters to the editor on subjects of interest to our readers. Opinions expressed to the editor and articles are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Orono Weekly times. Letters must be signed and contain the address and phone number of the writer. Any letter considered unsuitable will not be acknowledged or returned. We reserve the right to edit for length, libel and slander. If your retail or classified ad appears for the first time, please check carefully. Notice of an error must be given before the next issue goes to print. The Orono Weekly Times will not be responsible for the loss or damage of such items. Code Red It seemed the City of Vaughan has received its share of bad media attention over the past few years. Citizens in that city, north of Toronto, have taken councillors to court on a number of issues ranging from election finance irregularities, conflict of interest violations, un-tendered contracts awarded to a councillor's family member and improper office expenses. According to an article in the Saturday, January 30th edition of the Toronto Star, Urban Affairs Reporter Phinjo Gombu reports that the City of Vaughan is now a leader in transparency and accountability, with one of the most comprehensive codes of conduct for council members in Ontario, if not Canada. The City hired an integrity commissioner last year who created a comprehensive 32-page code of conduct for councillors to follow. The new code replaced a one-and-a-half page Code of Conduct dating from 1996. It is the commissioner's job now to enforce the Code of Conduct which the councillors of that city adopted for themselves. We too, in the Municipality of Clarington, have had our share of controversy over election finance irregularities. Two compliance audits of campaign expenses were requested by citizens following the 2006 municipal election. The audit of Mayor Abernethy's campaign expenses reported some minor contraventions of the Municipal Elections. The auditor of former Mayor Mutton's campaign expenses found no significant contraventions in Mutton's campaign expense report, and reported that the former Mayor was a popular elected official who worked well with council and senior staff. Through the diligence of the citizens group who requested the audit of Mutton's campaign expenses, the auditor was charged for conducting an improper audit, to which he pleaded guilty. Through constant hounding and the threat of legal action by the citizens group, Council granted a second audit of Mutton's 2006 campaign expenses. This second audit uncovered 36 apparent contraventions of the Elections Act in Mutton's expense report. Without the tenacity of the citizens group, the second audit would never have been conducted. This fall, Clarington too initiated a code of conduct for council members, though it is not nearly as comprehensive as the one in Vaughan. The Clarington Code of Conduct for Members of Council is one-page in length and includes eight items. These items forbid councillors from breaching the public trust, using municipal property for activates not associated with their duties, using Municipal buying power for personal gain, conducting their work in a manner which may cause danger to themselves or to others, selling goods to the municipality or benefitting from the use of information acquired during the course of official duties. This code of conduct had been in place for some time, it was just wrapped up in an employee code of conduct. The clauses pertaining directly to council members were isolated from the employee code of conduct and renamed Clarington Code of Conduct for Members of Council. Mayor Jim Abernethy attempted to have a more comprehensive code of conduct for council members passed in November 2009, but was unable to garner enough support from his fellow councillors. He might have been able to have his code adopted had he shown it to council members before introducing it at the council meeting. His code included rules around insider information, gifts, preferential treatment, influence, treatment of staff, and inappropriate conduct. Councillors don't like to make policy on the council floor, and don't appreciate having to make snap decisions on motions they are unfamiliar with. The Mayor got plenty of flack from fellow councillors, not on the content of his proposed code of conduct, but on the way he introduced it. The Vaughan Code has 21 commandments -- spelled out in detail -- which their integrity commissioner must enforce. In Clarington, it is up to each councillor to make sure they comply with the Code of Conduct. You could have many consecutive councils who do carry out their duties within the bounds of what is perceived to be ethical behavior. But every now and then a council member will cross the line, and a comprehensive Code of Ethics will spell out what that line is. There is no doubt the code of conduct Abernethy tried to introduce is superior to the existing Code of Conduct, but it is a far cry from the Code that governs Vaughan city councillors. Abernethy introduced a 'Notice of Motion' at Monday's council meeting requesting the Region of Durham retain an Integrity Commissioner to serve the entire Region. In the absence of an Integrity Commissioner, it is still up to each councillor to make sure they abide by the rules. Failing that, the responsibility falls on the public and the media to make sure elected representatives are playing fair. Letters to the Editor Oda proud of Canadian response Dear Editor, Further to your editorial, published on January 27th, on Haiti, I wish to respond. The earthquake was a devastating event that literally has demolished its capital city and surrounding region. The deaths, destruction and impact is one of the worst ever to hit a developing country. The immediate challenge has been to respond to the essential needs of the people by providing essential food, water, shelter and medical care. The long term work will be the re-construction of Haiti that will require an on-going commitment. This means that the international community will have to work with the Haitian government and people long after the media and television cameras have left. Haiti's history of political oppression and instability. It has also been the victim of countless severe hurricanes and natural disasters. The most recent being 4 destructive hurricanes in 2008. The democratically elected government of Haiti and the international community came together and were on the way to recovering from those disasters and improving the stability and progress to development for all Haitians. Then the earthquake hit and literally destroyed the capital, homes, schools, hospitals, roads, airports, ports, businesses. To undermine the Haitian people and its leadership, in the aftermath of such a devastating disaster by a Montrealbased consultant does not show any appreciation of the extent of the destruction and human suffering that was the reality on the ground. The leadership in Haiti have lost family and friends, public servants and its entire infrastructure, including buildings, telecommunications capacity and access to the people. They are now providing more services as the reality on the ground allows - banking servODA see page 3 Parliamentary subpoena Dear Editor: I hear that I'll be covering the costs for the Conservatives to send out political flyers attacking the Opposition's efforts to investigate allegations of mishandling of Afghan detainees. Google "10 percenters." I'd much rather this matter was dealt with where it belongs, with the parliamentary committees, but as they've been shut down by the prorogue, we're left with leaflets and bluster. The Conservative position is that the opposition is attacking our soldiers. Hogwash. The investigations so far suggest that procedures were inadequate for our forces and the supporting diplomats to do their job; to meet OUR obligations to the treaties and conventions we've signed up to. Instead of recognizing and addressing the possibility of failure of these procedures, they instead suggest the false choice that we have either an SUBPOENA see page 3