Changes could be coming to Prince Edward County Council’s code of conduct.
During Tuesday’s council meeting, council received a deputation from Paul Allen, a county resident, who is urging council to tighten regulations that prevent councillors from using their influence inappropriately.
In his presentation to council, Allen pointed at an incident where a councillor had voted against a motion that had significant financial impacts for a company that had a business relationship with that councillor’s son. He had made a complaint to the integrity commissioner previously, but that complaint was dismissed as the commissioner had found that the councillor had not violated the code.
Allen requested that council update the code of conduct to address both non-pecuniary as well as pecuniary interests of the councillors. He also noted that other nearby municipalities already addressed both types of conflict in their codes of conduct.
After a brief discussion, council determined that municipal staff are already evaluating the code of conduct for revision, as part of a previous resolution, and expect to have the results of that evaluation available later this year. As a result, the deputation was accepted, but no further action was taken.
