mclaren violated conduct code, says kingston's integrity commissioner
comments in media interview suggested votes against mclaren's co-op housing proposal were meant to derail his mayoral hopes
2 minute read
meadownbrook-strathcona dist. coun. jeff mclaren listens to countryside dist. coun. gary oosterhof speak at a city council meeting in kingston, ont. on tuesday, march 4, 2025.
elliot fergison
/
the whig-standard
kingston — for the second time in five months, a city councillor has breached the city’s code of conduct, according to a report to council.
the report, to be presented to city council tuesday, showed meadowbrook-strathcona dist. coun. jeff mclaren violated the code of conduct in comments he made in a media interview following city council’s vote against providing $2.3 million in funding for limestone city co-operative housing’s proposed 248-unit, 14-storey building.
mclaren suggested in the article that council’s decision was based, in part, on issues other than financial, including thwarting his future ambitions to be mayor.
“such a comment casts aspersions on the intent of council in passing the motion as it did,” wrote the city’s integrity commissioner meghan a. cowan of aird & berlis llp. “the statements made by the councillor as reported in the article were a speculative accusation about the intention of members of council.”
the code of conduct instructs members of council not to make “disparaging comments about another member or unfounded and speculative accusations about the motive of another member.”
advertisement
in his defence, mclaren said he thought the comments were off the record or that he had retracted the words or asked immediately after he said them that they be off the record.
mclaren also said he followed the comment by saying “no” and shaking his head, body language that he assumed the interviewer would interpret a way of discarding the comment.
“i have explained that i shook my head, said no, and believed the exchange to have been concluded or dismissed. that communication — delivered through a combination of verbal and non-verbal cues — was made in good faith and in real time,” mclaren wrote in response to the integrity commissioner’s finding. “the fact that the journalist may not have interpreted by signals as i intended does not negate that i made them. communication, particularly in person, is rarely confined to the spoken word alone.”
cowan recommended that mclaren be reprimanded but not receive a monetary penalty.
“we are prepared to accept the councillor’s submission that his comments were an initial musing that he quickly discounted and attempted to distance himself from but was not successful,” cowan added. “nevertheless, we find that he never formally retracted the comments or specifically advised the author of the article that he did not want his comments reported.”
advertisement
elferguson@postmedia.com
share story
