Judge orders Elliot Lake mayor should be removed from office

An Ontario court has ruled the recently elected mayor of Elliot Lake should be removed from office.

This decision comes three years after conflict of interest complaints against Chris Patrie were first referred to the court by the integrity commissioner of the small northern Ontario city. 

It's alleged that between 2017 and 2019, Patrie tried to convince fellow city councillors to build a planned recreation complex on a site near to a store he owns in a commercial plaza owned by a corporation where he is a director.

While awaiting the court's decision, Patrie was elected as mayor in October.

The ruling, which also calls for Patrie to be banned from holding public office for two years, was released just hours before Monday night's council meeting, which was instead chaired by city Coun. Andrew Wannan. 

"Based on the ruling, Mayor Patrie will not be attending tonight. He sends his regrets and wishes to inform you all that he will be applying tomorrow for a stay of proceedings and will be filing an appeal," Wannan said at the start of the meeting.

"It is our duty as your elected council to continue with tonight's meeting, despite the setback. We give Mayor Patrie and his wife Kelly and family our full support through this process." 

Elliot Lake chief administrative officer Dan Gagnon says Patrie has officially been removed from office by the court order, but staff are seeking clarification on whether anything changes if he files an appeal. 

In her decision, Justice Annalisa Rasaiah wrote she does not make the ruling "lightly" and understands the political "ramifications."

She summarized that the integrity commissioner found Patrie was determined to see a proposed $30-million recreational complex built near the Oakland Plaza, which he has a financial interest in, and not on the former site of the Algo Centre Mall in downtown Elliot Lake. 

The court heard that included threatening another member of council with an ethics complaint, lobbying the mayor and specific members of the public, pressuring city staff to write reports favourable to his preferred location and threatening investigators with legal action once he discovered he was being investigated. 

'Reckless and/or willfully blind'

Rasaiah's decision says the integrity commissioner believes Patrie "specializes in the "'non-denial denial' and is not credible."

"Patrie chooses not to deny most of the allegations... [he] obfuscates, pontificates and evades specific questions by disputing irrelevant details, raising justifications that do not amount to legal defences and/or refers to events out of chronological order — all in the apparent hope that the issues will be sufficiently confused so that it will seem like there is an explanation for each of his actions."

Patrie and his lawyers argued the integrity commissioner is acting outside its jurisdiction and has no evidence he violated the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act.

Rasaiah did find there was no evidence Patrie actually benefited financially from this lobbying, but still found he was "reckless and/or wilfully blind" to the rules he is required to follow as an elected official.

"The public is entitled to expect the highest standard of conduct from Patrie. He did not meet that standard," the judge wrote.

Rasaiah also found the political positions Patrie took to be "irreconcilably variable and disingenuous" and that a comment he made about trying to convince other members of council to vote a certain way "implies that he will say things he does not mean to achieve what he wants to achieve, and that his attitude is that 'It's just politics.'"