Brampton councillor filing ethics complaint against herself

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Published December 11, 2019 at 9:14 pm

At a recent council meeting Charmaine Williams, Brampton Wards 7 and 8 councillor, said that she is planning on filing a complaint with the city’s integrity commissioner…against herself.

At a recent council meeting Charmaine Williams, Brampton Wards 7 and 8 councillor, said that she is planning on filing a complaint with the city’s integrity commissioner…against herself.

“I am filing an Integrity Commissioner complaint against one Brampton City Councillor – me,” Williams said in a press release to local media.

The newly elected councillor has been under fire for hiring Rob Davis and Associates Inc. to provide services to her office, but maintains she followed the spirit and the letter of the rules governing council expenditures.

“Brampton’s City Clerk said I followed the rules. Brampton’s City Manager said I followed the rules and Brampton’s legal counsel said I followed the rules. They are the experts. Now I am asking the integrity commissioner to confirm that the experts are right and the career politicians are wrong.”

During a previous council meeting on November 20, council voted in favour of changing the rules that govern the way councillors use consultants. 

This decision was made after discovering what appeared to be a loophole in the hiring process for city councillors’ offices after Williams submitted invoices to pay an outside consultant over $20,000 for services which were rendered to her this year. 

Earlier this year, council implemented a new political staffing model which increased the number of office assistants each councillor is allowed from one to two, costing them over $1 million.

Although it is unclear what kind of work Davis performed, there were still security concerns among some councillors with regards to access to information by the consultant.

Williams was defiant in her belief she did nothing wrong.

“It is offensive to suggest that I was breaking any rules or not following the spirit of rules when I hired a part-time person to provide services to the residents of Brampton. Several Brampton councillors also have part-time employees and more than two employees, including me. By singling me out some councillors are misleading taxpayers,” she continued in her statement.

“Drive-by smears are tools used by those with small minds. Brampton taxpayers deserve better than that. By filling my complaint, I’m giving taxpayers a chance to have an unbiased third-party determine that the accusations are outright lies. I am so confident I did nothing wrong, I filed a complaint against myself. I have nothing to hide.”

“For some reason my accusers don’t have the guts to launch a formal complaint, so I am doing it for them,” concluded Williams. “Taxpayers in Brampton deserve to hear the truth, as opposed to the fictional stories being perpetrated by other councillors.”

Photo courtesy of the City of Brampton

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