A Sarnia city councilor, allegedly at the center of diversity training gone wrong for council, says litigation is underway.
Bill Dennis wrote in an email, he won’t comment further until a separate investigation is complete.
Sarnia’s integrity commissioner, Paul Watson, said he’s investigating two complaints related to council’s botched Nov. 15 diversity training with the Toronto-based KOJO Institute.
Dennis didn’t specifically answer questions about who is named in any lawsuit but said he looks forward to commenting when “the investigation” is complete.
“The public needs to know the truth and not the political spin, false narratives and inaccurate information that is currently out there,” he wrote. “I can’t wait to set the record straight.”
Audio leaked from what several on council confirmed was its Dec. 13 closed meeting includes Dennis railing against the “woke direction” of some councilors, and of “pearl clutching,” “fake outrage (and) PC (politically correct) culture taking over this council.”
That meeting followed the completed Nov. 15 virtual training that KOJO has said was marred by “undisrupted, uncorrected and unabated hostility” from some council members.
Dennis, in the audio recording, also takes aim at an unidentified woman as “a racist herself,” saying “Canada is not a racist country and I will not sit back and have someone speak that way.”
Dennis calls the “session … not as advertised,” saying it’s basically critical race theory, “offensive right from the get-go,” and adding “she said some very offensive things that I didn’t agree with.”
KOJO principal consultant Kike Ojo-Thompson, who is Black, led the Nov. 15 training session for council.
A request for comment from Ojo-Thompson about Dennis’s remarks was not returned by press time. Earlier in the week, Craig Peter, KOJO’s director of operations, indicated in multiple emails the institute had “no comment regarding this meeting/leaked recording.”
Dennis also didn’t respond to an emailed question about whether anything is inaccurate in the nearly six-minute recording he recently told city council is “highly edited.”
The Observer has confirmed the source of the audio was a participant in the Dec. 13 closed-door council meeting.
No recording devices, except those operated by the municipality, are permitted in closed meetings, city clerk Amy Burkhart has said. The normal practice of recording meetings has been suspended amid COVID-19 for practical reasons, though it’s set to resume when council returns to hybrid in-person and online meetings May 9.
Recordings are normally made to assist in potential Ontario ombudsman investigations and not for any other purpose, Burkhart said.
The Dec. 13 recording includes Dennis talking about “legal ramifications” and coming “down like a hammer with a lawsuit.” The councilor also takes aim at his colleagues, saying he’s “the only one that gets anything done on this council” and notes he’s suffered backlash for supporting Mayor Mike Bradley in the 2018 election.
“I’m putting everyone on notice. …I’m not taking it anymore,” he said. “I have the money. I will come down (like) a hammer. If this goes, I will sweat.”
count. Nathan Colquhoun, in a blog post, has said he presented a motion in the closed Dec. 13 meeting for council to publicly disclose a Dec. 2 letter from KOJO to Sarnia chief administrative officer Chris Carter to make the “public aware of what is going on within our leadership positions of the city.”
In the letter, KOJO withdrew proposals for further training with city management and the city’s police board based on the alleged hostility.
Colquhoun has also said Dennis was one of two councilors who were “hostile, racist, sexist and completely disrespectful and inappropriate” to KOJO’s Ojo-Thompson.
Dennis has not responded specifically to questions about the allegations.
After several calls from local social justice agencies, and with a legal opinion from Toronto firm Aird & Berlis and the blessing of KOJO to release “personal information,” KOJO’s letter and further details were released in council’s April 11 agenda package.
“We’re glad it was released,” said Andrew Bolter of Community Legal Assistance Sarnia, one of the groups that’s been calling since February for council to act.
“When someone walks away from a training like that with those words, it indicates there is a serious issue,” he said about the KOJO letter that calls Sarnia’s environment “unsafe” for further training.
Bolter added: “We’re just hoping that the city council takes this issue seriously and recognizes that racism, systemic racism is in our community, and accepts the fact that it needs to be addressed.”
Council also passed a 6-3 vote Monday to release redacted components of the Dec. 13 closed meeting agenda and minutes.
That additional information is expected to be released at council’s May 9 meeting, Burkhart said.
John Pappas of Aird & Berlis suggests council include a caveat to not disclose anything for which it doesn’t have authority, which includes personal information, defined broadly under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
count. Mike Stark, who made the motion to release everything, declined to change its wording.
“Even though we have advice not to divulge this information, it seems to me the public is aware of the situation,” he said in an interview.
“I think it’s an issue of . . . transparency as much as possible, given the limitations that transcriptions don’t necessarily reflect everything that happened,” he said.
Councilors Margaret Bird, Terry Burrell and Dennis voted against, with Dennis saying he couldn’t support revealing information in the documents with “a high likelihood of pending litigation that’s going to be taking place.”
He also referred to what he called the “illegal” recording that’s been shared across social media.
Disclosure of personal information in violation of the legislation can also result in “quasi-criminal” charges and is a violation of council’s code of conduct, Pappas noted.
Releasing the remaining information publicly at this point is more important than any freedom-of-information risk, said Bradley.
“So much of this has (already) been released by people to the public,” he said.
“My belief on this one is disclose, disclose, disclose because, if you don’t, you will always leave the impression that there was something that wasn’t shared with the public.”
He hasn’t heard the recording but has seen a transcript, Bradley said, noting there’s been confusion and people are mistakenly thinking it’s a recording from Nov. 15.
“The mood of the (Dec. 13) meeting, I think, has been captured by whomever has released it that there was significant issues going on,” he said, noting the full meeting was about an hour and he was “disappointed with the personalization of the meeting.”
There could have been selective editing, he said.
Stark said he was caught off guard by the amount of vitriol at the meeting, calling it “shocking and disturbing.”
Also Monday, Colquhoun introduced a motion to have all private meetings with city staff involving members of council recorded and later released publicly.
He said decisions were made, without all of council, about holding the KOJO training behind closed doors and whether afterwards there would be a formal apology from council, noting council was bound by those decisions. Many on council individually apologized to KOJO after Nov. 15 on behalf of their colleagues.
Council rejected Colquhoun’s motion 8-1, with Colquhoun the only vote in favour.
Bradley said he provided advice through the city clerk but didn’t direct any action.
Interactions such as councilors asking questions about motions coming up shouldn’t have to be recorded, Coun. Terry Burrell said at Monday’s meeting.
Other council training sessions have been held outside of closed-meeting confines, Colquhoun said. Sarnia officials, though, have said the city’s decision not to have the meeting in public was prompted by KOJO, which indicated an open session wasn’t desirable for proprietary reasons and to ensure that training would be effective.
A new trainer, meanwhile, has been found for senior city staff, Sarnia chief administrator Chris Carter said.
Turner Consulting will conduct the May 31 diversity, equity and inclusion training, he said. The cost is $1,200.
Police board discussions about hiring a new trainer for that group are pending, Carter and Bradley said. There cost for police board training hasn’t been set, Carter said.
A new chief is “imminent” for the force to replace outgoing Chief Norm Hansen in June, Bradley said.
He’s previously said rescheduling of the police board training would be delayed until the new chief could participate.