UPDATED: Kinach hasn’t decided whether he’ll apologize

Ward 4 Coun. Stephan Kinach is so far undecided on whether to comply with a recommendation from the city's integrity commissioner that he apologize for 'inappropriate' remarks.

"I have spoken to Coun. Kinach a few times this weekend but am awaiting word from him on his plan for Monday," Mayor Matthew Shoemaker told SooToday on Sunday afternoon.

"If there’s no apology and it requires further council action, I suspect you’d see council choose between a motion to reprimand and a suspension of remuneration on Monday. 

"Obviously I hope it doesn’t get to that. Unlike many other municipalities in the north that have spent literally hundreds of thousands on integrity commissioner investigations and complaints since 2018 when the province mandated that municipalities have these codes in place, this is our first-ever finding that someone has breached the code, so we are working through this without a local precedent," Shoemaker said.

As SooToday first reported last Thursday, the mayor and Tom Vair, the city's chief administrative officer, met with Kinach after the March 18 city council meeting to express concern about an angry tirade the councillor had directed at Vair during the live-streamed meeting.

"In making remarks at the council meeting of March 18, 2024, regarding the CAO’s report of the use of consultants for city operations, Coun. Kinach made several remarks about staff that were found to be inappropriate and contrary to the code of conduct," Antoinette Blunt, the City of Sault Ste. Marie's integrity commissioner, said in a written decision released Thursday.

"Coun. Kinach has the duty and responsibility to treat staff appropriately and not use insulting words or expressions," she said.

Blunt recommended Kinach apologize at a city council meeting.

In a SooToday poll conducted Thursday through Sunday, our readers showed extraordinary support for Kinach, with 1,314 votes (90.1 per cent) saying he'd done nothing wrong.

Only 144 votes (9.88 per cent) supported the integrity commissioner's recommendation.

But Mayor Shoemaker was having none of it.

"The breach of the code of conduct was not based on the fact that he questioned staff about the report on the use of consultants, which he, and all of council, is completely within their right to do," the mayor told SooToday.

"It is based on the lack of civility he showed in his remarks, specifically that staff were 'working against council and Saultites.' It’s those remarks that went further than they should have and caused the breach of the code of conduct.

"I encourage council to question staff as thoroughly as they want to on any report before us, but it must be done with respect and decorum," Shoemaker said.

Who is Antoinette Blunt?

Blunt was named Sault Ste. Marie's integrity commissioner in 2018, earning $205 an hour on an as-needed basis to enforce the city's code of conduct.

Her website describes her as a "licensed private investigator with extensive experience in undertaking workplace investigations related to allegations of violations of the Occupational Health and Safety Act (bullying, harassment, violence, sexual harassment in the workplace) and allegations of violations of the Human Rights Code."

Blunt has also been appointed integrity commissioner to eight other municipalities in northeastern Ontario:

• The Corporation of the Municipality of Wawa
• The Township of Hilton
• The Township of Jocelyn
• The Township of Laird
• The Township of Plummer Additional
• The Township of St. Joseph
• The Township of Tarbutt
• The Village of Hilton Beach

In 2005, Blunt was recognized with the Sault Ste. Marie Chamber of Commerce's Athena Award, recognizing exceptional women leaders who inspire others to achieve excellence in their professional and personal lives.

Since she was hired in 2018 by the City of Sault Ste. Marie, Blunt has billed the city $13,476, $1,542 of that last year.

The Ontario government requires every municipality to have a code of conduct and to appoint an integrity commissioner.

So what prompted Kinach's March 18 outburst?

He was reacting to a report about the city's use of consultants prepared by CAO Vair.

Kinach believes the city spends way too much on consulting services.

He's calculated the previous council's spending on consultants from 2019 to 2023 at approximately $11 million and he says a lot of that work could be done by the city's in-house staff.

Kinach asked that consulting fees be included as line items on the city budget so they can be more easily tracked.

Vair said the city uses consultants in these five primary scenarios:

• to avoid employing specialized staff that are not required as full-time employees
• to engage subject matter experts with experience on a provincial, national or international level to better inform city operations, planning, design or strategy
• to enable the city to ramp up operations for peak periods of work to supplement full-time labour
• to allow the city to access funding programs that don't allow staff time to be covered within eligibility requirements
• to fulfill regulatory requirements

As for Kinach's demand to have consulting fees listed as line items on the annual budget, Vair implied that would be too much fuss and bother.

"The operating budget materials provided to council include 'purchased and contracted services,' which will contain the budget for consultants. To move beyond this level of detail is not recommended given the level of effort required to extract project details from individual capital projects and special projects," the CAO said.

That remark seemed to push Kinach over the edge.

"The people told council to rein in spending. Council told staff to reflect on the use of consultants and instead of using this as a chance of reflection on past spending and hiring, CAO Vair, you just rubber-stamped and defended all this spending and hiring with this report." 

"Out of roughly $11 million and hundreds of consulting contracts given out, I find it hard to believe that you could not find one that didn't align with best practices...."

"This report discards us and our constituents we represent. This completely ignores the whole democratic process because this report is evidence that staff is working against council and Saultites. 

"They were directed by council to make consulting a line item in the budget and they ignored it and we're just accepting his information," Kinach said.

But Kinach got precious little support and a lot of flak from his fellow council members.

"You will definitely get further working with staff to try and achieve goals than you will by, frankly, giving them a tongue-lashing because the report doesn't align exactly with what you think it ought to align with," said Mayor Shoemaker.

"And to suggest that staff is working against the council is frankly beyond the pale," the mayor said.

"There is a great team of dedicated employees here. We don't always agree with them. I and Mr. Vair have had significant disagreement over the downtown plaza is one example in the past.

"But I know that in every recommendation he's brought forward, he is doing as council directed him to do, which was to bring forward proposals on the development of that project," the mayor told Kinach.

"What I would say to my colleague," added Ward 2 Coun. Lisa Vezeau-Allen, "is that being accusatory when maybe you don't understand the entirety of the sense of why and when and where and how, I think probably having a one-on-one conversation... would be much better served than having that accusatory tone."

"I think my colleague was a little out-of-line in calling stuff out in this way, but I am personally happy with the way that things have been going since I've been on council," said Coun. Angela Caputo.

If Coun. Kinach refuses to apologize on Monday and council opts to  suspend his remuneration, the suspension will last for 90 days.

Monday's city council meeting will be live-streamed starting at 5 p.m.