EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a new Village Media website devoted exclusively to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.
In his annual report for the year including the height of the controversy around the stag-and-doe party Premier Doug Ford hosted ahead of his daughter's wedding, Ontario's integrity commissioner re-raised suggestions for MPPs to shore up their own conflict-of-interest and gift-receiving rules.
J. David Wake's asks were in the "commissioner's message" portion of his office's 2022-23 annual report, which serves as a rare platform for the typically in-the-background oversight officer to express opinions about his work and the laws that shape it.
Ontario's Members' Integrity Act does not explicitly outlaw MPPs from being in an apparent conflict of interest. While these instances "are often the result of misinformation... unless addressed, they can lead to a lack of public faith in our institutions," commissioner Wake wrote in the report released on Tuesday.
MPPs' ethics law also doesn't preclude MPPs' extended family members or friends from receiving gifts, which is one of the gift-related questions the commissioner suggested "it is time to address."
Last August, developers and lobbyists attended a $150-a-ticket stag-and-doe party that the premier hosted at his house to benefit his daughter's and son-in-law's wedding in September. Based on certain information Ford disclosed to the integrity commissioner's office about the event — including that the premier had "no knowledge of any of the gifts that were given" to his daughter and son-in-law, that he personally wasn't given money by attendees, and that "no government confidential information" was discussed at the event — Wake returned him an opinion saying that nothing showed Ford broke ethics law.
The opinion Wake gave to Ford became a controversy in and of itself, with the commissioner later dedicating a significant chunk of a report on the situation to explaining his rationale.
The commissioner has effectively pressed pause on a formal inquiry into Ford that NDP and official Opposition Leader Marit Stiles requested based on the stag and doe and wedding that followed it while his office first completes an earlier investigation on the government's Greenbelt land swap.
In the same March 16 report that he explained his controversial opinion to Ford, Wake also lamented the lack of clarity in Ontario's Members' Integrity Act around appearances of conflicts of interest.
In a report by one of Wake's predecessors, Ontario's first integrity commissioner Gregory T. Evans wrote that "the Act does not concern itself with a perceived conflict of interest as opposed to an actual conflict," the current commissioner wrote. Wake added that the Members' Integrity Act "underwent a slight change" since Evans' time holding the office, said "it was not clear to (him) that the Legislature intended the conflict provisions of the Act to apply to the appearance of a
conflict," and noted that he previously recommended to the legislature that it consider clarifying this.
"The question (on appearances of conflict of interest) has arisen again, but, to date, the legislature has not taken any steps to review this aspect of the (Members' Integrity Act)," Wake wrote in his 2022-23 annual report.
On April 17, a couple of months after details of the stag and doe were reported on by journalists, Stiles introduced Bill 100 to try addressing one question mark in the Members' Integrity Act around appearances of a conflict of interest. If passed, it would have barred MPPs from accepting gifts "that might reasonably be seen to have been given in connection, directly or indirectly, with the performance of the member's duties of office." Progressive Conservative MPPs defeated it using their majority less than a month later.
Wake also suggested in his annual report that Ontario's lawmakers should consider broadening his authority to initiate official inquiries into MPPs.
"In some jurisdictions, commissioners can act on their own initiative based on information provided to them from other sources, including members of the public," the integrity commissioner wrote. "This is an option that should be considered by the legislature."
