Winnipeg again asks province to apply cooling-off rules to city officials - Action News
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Manitoba

Winnipeg again asks province to apply cooling-off rules to city officials

Winnipeg is poised to ask Manitoba to apply the same cooling-off rules that govern former provincial officials to city councillors and senior municipal public servants.

Elected officials and public servants could be covered by rules that govern former provincial employees

Coun. Matt Allard (St. Boniface) has clarified Winnipeg's request for the province to make city officials are covered by cooling-off rules. (Tyson Koschik/CBC)

Winnipeg is poised to ask Manitoba to apply the same cooling-off rules that govern former provincial officials to city councillors and senior municipal public servants.

City council's executive policy committee (EPC) voted Tuesday to ask council to endorse the idea of the province extending its cooling-off rules to cities, towns and other municipalities in Manitoba.

Such a move would replace a similar, two-year-old council directive that would have only covered elected officials at city hall.

"Cooling off rules are about ensuring those public officials that have access to proprietary information are not using that proprietary information in their next role once the leave the public sector to enter privatelife," said St. Boniface Coun. Matt Allard.

Council voted in 2017 to ask city staff to work with the province on changing the city charter to ensure elected officials are subject to a cooling-off period.

Mayor Brian Bowman pushed for the changes torestrict departing mayors and councillors from lobbying the city or working in certain types of jobs for an unspecified period of time.

"There have been a number of councillors, as you know, who've gone on to [other] work and we've seen [them] at city hall. Certainly former councillor Justin Swandel has presented to [executive policy committee] and has advocated on behalf of a company," Bowman said in 2017.

Swandel served as the councillor for St. Norbert from 2005 until 2014. He went on to work for Terracon, a Winnipeg developer.

City staff started working with their provincial counterparts on the cooling-off period and requested more time from city council to work on a report.

They learned the province was working on updating its own conflict-of-interest rules, Winnipeg chief corporate services officer Michael Jack told EPC on Tuesday.

Provincial conflict-of-interest commissioner Jeff Schnoorhas made84 recommendations about ways to change provincial rules and a bill will be introduced soon, said Jack, adding it makes sense for the city to wait for the new legislation.

Allardsays his new motion simply asks council to endorse this idea.