Declare conflict, don't speechify, mayor tells council

Coun. Tom Mason declares a conflict of interest at Tuesday night's council meeting. Photo by Bill Tremblay, Special to BayToday.ca.

City councilors who have a conflict of interest to declare should declare it without any preambles or comments, North Bay Mayor Vic Fedeli said.

Fedeli made his remarks at Tuesday night’s council meeting after Coun. Tom Mason declared a conflict of interest, but not before adding an introduction.

Council was about to vote on a motion supporting a proposal for a tourism call centre the North Bay and District Chamber of Commerce is seeking funding for from FedNor.

The centre would provide one-stop shopping for tourists wanting to book vacations in the North Bay area.

Several councilors had commented on the motion, and then Mason, the general manager of the Clarion Resort-Pinewood Park, spoke.

“This is a great initiative and I think it’s been addressed very eloquently, and it’s been well put together,” Mason said.

“But I have to be upfront and I have to be transparent and I have to be honest about this.”

Mason then said he’s a chamber member, and that the principle behind the motion was to ultimately drive business to tourism establishments in the area.

“I manage and run a tourism business that will definitely clearly benefit from this call centre so unfortunately Your Worship I have no recourse but to declare a conflict on this,” Mason said.

Fedeli jumped in as Mason was finishing up.

“I’m going to give fair notice to all councilors—and I have mentioned it to you individually—please just say ‘I have a conflict,’ but no speechifying on the conflict,” Fedeli said.

“That’s the whole idea in declaring the conflict, you can’t tell whether you support it or are against it.”

One councilor said Fedeli had mentioned those things before.

“I know I have,” Fedeli responded, “but I won’t be saying this again.”

Fedeli said any discussion prior to declaring a conflict “is not a proper procedure.”

“They’ve been warned about it more than once, so I had to use council time to talk about it publicly,” Fedeli said.

“Too often the councilors carry on and talk about it, and they give a hint as to whether they favour or are against a topic, and that’s the whole idea of a conflict, that you are conflicted and therefore you shouldn’t be discussing it.”

Mason said afterwards that he was just “clarifying” his conflict.

“I think I was in two minds about it and I was trying to quantify it in my own mind and I think I managed to do that.”