Question Period: Why Getting Answers from City Hall Matters
In Owen Sound, the principles of transparency, integrity, and accountability are being tested as the Mayor refuses to answer questions about conduct, transparency, and public engagement.
EDITORIAL
“It is not enough to do the right thing — one must be seen to be doing the right thing.”
~ Sinclair Stevens, former President of the Treasury Board of Canada
At The Owen Sound Current, we believe good government depends on openness — that citizens deserve real answers to reasonable questions. But in Owen Sound, getting straight answers from City Hall has become increasingly difficult.
That’s why today, we’re launching a new column called Question Period. This will provide us a regular space dedicated to asking, clearly and respectfully, the questions that matter to this community when public officials will not answer them directly.
The City of Owen Sound’s Eroding Public Engagement
In January 2024, we asked members of council how they thought public engagement could be improved. Only one replied.
In July 2024, council voted to restrict public participation at meetings, limiting speakers to three minutes and narrowing which issues qualify as “within the City’s jurisdiction,” at the Mayor and City Manager’s discretion.
The following month, a committee member who had volunteered his time to strengthen transparency wrote a letter to the editor questioning why council overruled its own committee’s vote on how the City allows public input.
And while the City’s $200,000 Vision 2050 process included one weekend for voluntary public participation, all other meetings were invitation-only. It took a freedom of information and access ruling to get the community survey results released.
Just last week, a resident’s attempt to ask questions about a $400,000 fire truck purchase — questions he had tried and failed to have answered through other channels — ended in a tense exchange over public speaking restrictions in open session.
Now, as the City embarks on its first “Strong Mayor” budget process, Owen Sound City Council has canceled the annual public budget meeting entirely, even as other municipalities operating within the same guidelines continued theirs.
When we asked the Mayor why, he did not respond.
When the Questions Are About Conduct
Last week, the Sun Times reported on remarks from Mayor Ian Boddy at a groundbreaking for the Harbour West development. It’s a project linked to both a former client and a personal friend of his.
In January 2025, when a bylaw involving the property came to Council, the Mayor declared a disqualifying interest under the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act related to the same property, because his law practice had previously acted for one of the developers, Hansa Financial & Property Management.
At the event, speaking in his capacity as Mayor, he described a longstanding personal connection with the project’s other partner, while making an unverified claim about affordable housing within the development.
Mayor Boddy is quoted:
“We need housing, we all know that.
So, for the boo birds out there, 10 per cent of the units in here will be affordable, adding to the number that are in here already.
So that’s pretty important and we thank the developers for doing that.”
The same article also states:
The project is using Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation-insured financing, which requires 10 per cent of the units to be offered at rents deemed affordable, based on a CMHC formula, said Geoff McMurdo, chief operating officer for Kitchener-based Kingsley Management.
We asked the Mayor whether the “10% affordable housing” he thanked the developers for was an additional contribution, or a requirement of CMHC’s financing program.
He did not answer the question.
In an effort to be certain about the affordable housing allotment before writing this article, we reached out yesterday morning to the City Manager, Tim Simmonds.
He hasn’t responded, either.
The rest of the Mayor’s comment — directed at no one in particular — came unprompted, during what was intended to be a celebratory event. It characterized members of the public as “boo birds,” a term typically used in sports to describe fans who jeer their own team.
In the context of a community struggling with housing and homelessness, questions about housing affordability and the City’s role in ensuring it’s being accounted for in community planning are legitimate. To be expected, even.
The City’s Code of Conduct calls on members of Council to “treat members of the public with dignity, understanding and respect,” and its Core Values emphasize “caring” and “integrity.”
A reasonable person might question whether the Mayor’s language reflects the decorum and respect expected of him in representing the municipality at an event.
Council’s Code of Conduct states that elected officials are expected “to avoid the improper use of influence of their office and conflicts of interest, both apparent and real.”
A reasonable person might question whether it’s appropriate for the Mayor to publicly praise and thank a former client and personal friend for an act that may simply reflect a requirement, especially when doing so could shape public perception of both the project and those involved.
If it didn’t matter, why would you say it to the media and the world?
A reasonable person might ask why the Mayor decided to speak on behalf of the municipality at all, given that he had declared a conflict involving the same party nine months earlier. He could have assigned it to the Deputy Mayor, who also attended and could have done the same without even a whiff of perceived potential conflict.
Council’s Code of Conduct says members “should be able to explain why a decision made is not a conflict of interest, real or perceived” and that they’re advised to contact the IC if they have questions about anything that could be perceived as a conflict before it becomes an issue.
We asked Mayor Boddy last week:
When did your professional relationship with Hansa Financial begin and end?
Did you seek or receive advice from the City’s Integrity Commissioner before attending the event?
How do you reconcile attending and speaking at the event in your official capacity with the disqualifying interest you declared earlier this year?
Do you believe your participation aligns with the City’s Council Code of Conduct, which prohibits activities that “grant, or appear to grant, any special consideration, treatment, or advantage” to individuals?
The Mayor’s Response
The Mayor replied that because the event was not a council meeting, the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act did not apply. He did not address the Code of Conduct, which applies broadly to all members of council and to all conduct carried out in an official capacity, not just during formal meetings.
Nor did he answer any of the questions above.
However, Mayor Boddy did issue Owen Sound Current a caution in his response:
“On a Without Prejudice basis, if you choose to publish any information to the contrary, do so at your own peril.”
We responded to clarify that our questions concern the City’s own Code of Conduct, which goes beyond the bare minimum of the Act. We gave the Mayor another opportunity — two more days to answer the reasonable questions sent to him privately and directly.
He did not respond.
Public officials cannot credibly complain about misinformation while refusing to provide accurate information when asked.
Transparency is the only effective antidote to confusion and speculation.
Why It Matters
The Code of Conduct exists for precisely these moments — to help ensure that the City’s leaders act, and are seen to act, impartially. It reminds members that they are “leaders in the community who are held to a high standard of behaviour and conduct,” and that they must “promote public confidence and bear close public scrutiny.”
Those are not unreasonable expectations.
In 2024, Council received the Integrity Commissioner’s last report — its first since 2021 — prepared by Principles Integrity, the Toronto-based firm contracted to oversee Owen Sound’s ethical framework.
Contrary to public perception, the report made clear that the Commissioner’s role is not to “hold elected officials to account,” “investigate alleged transgressions,” or “recommend punishment.” Instead, the firm described its purpose as to “serve as an independent resource, coach, and guide, focused on enhancing the municipality’s ethical culture.”
Over that two-year reporting period, Principles Integrity advised councillors 13 times, provided one disposition letter, and led a single post-election training session on the Code of Conduct. Council extended the firm’s contract for another five years, to 2028, at a rate of $275 per hour, plus a $1,200 annual retainer.
It’s not the money that raises eyebrows, but the return on it.
For that investment, Owen Sound taxpayers might reasonably expect clear, visible accountability when reasonable questions arise about council members’ adherence to their own Code of Conduct.
Democracy Depends on Friction
It calls for the healthy kind of friction that comes from questions asked, rightfully expected answers provided, and decisions explained in the open.
At the federal and provincial levels, accountability is built into the system. Opposition parties challenge governments daily, and the public sees the debate play out in real time.
But municipal government has no such safeguard. There is no opposition bench at City Hall.
We depend instead on individual councillors to hold one another, and their Mayor, to account — and on local media and engaged citizens to ask the questions that power would prefer go unasked.
Every time a public question is met with silence, ridicule, or deflection, the foundation of local democracy cracks a little more.
Accountability and transparency are more than policies and meeting minutes.
It requires a culture of openness where questions are answered, not avoided; where “integrity” is more than a word in a policy binder; and where the public can see its leaders doing the right thing, not merely asserting that they have.
The slow erosion of that culture through silence, defensiveness, or disdain for those who ask questions is a risk to this community’s ability to move forward successfully, together.
About Question Period
Question Period is our commitment to asking, clearly and respectfully, the questions that reasonable people in this community are asking until those questions are answered.
If you’ve tried to raise an issue through official channels and haven’t been heard, we invite you to bring it forward publicly.
Media isn’t your first stop. But a closed door, unanswered email, intimidating public speaking process, or unsatisfactory response from elected officials doesn’t have to be your last stop, either.
Email owensoundcurrenteditor@gmail.com or reply to one of our weekday briefs. Let’s ask — and keep asking — until we get the answers this community deserves.
Related:
We can’t expect the public to give transparency and trust if our leaders can’t give it to us.
The name calling has to go on all sides as well - who actually says “boo birds” about their own constituents other than the likes of those to our south?
Leaders need to do better!!!
Anyone reading this article or this comment - ask yourself:
Why did Owen Sound cancel its public budget meeting when other municipalities didn’t?
Why should residents need a freedom-of-information request just to see survey results?
How does cutting public participation to three minutes reflect “engagement”?
Should the Mayor thank a developer for “affordable units” without clarifying if it was required or voluntary?
If the Code of Conduct says treat the public with dignity, why dismiss people with labels?
So many questions.
Government owes us direct, clear answers.