Judge blasts Manitoba municipality for trying to remove councillor who missed meetings during work hours

A Manitoba judge says a councillor for a rural municipality shouldn’t be disqualified for missing three consecutive meetings that were held at 9:30 a.m. while she was at work.

A judge has reinstated a councillor for a southern Manitoba rural municipality, after the council she sits on tried to remove her for missing meetings held while she was at work.

In his decision dated Feb. 9, Court of King’s Bench Justice Chris Martin blasted the reeve and council for the RM of Thompson and the local urban district of Miami — in the Pembina Valley, southwest of Winnipeg — for disqualifying Coun. Deborah Cox, after she missed three consecutive meetings held at 9:30 a.m. because she was working and her employer would not give her unpaid time off to attend.

“Generally, communication, collaboration and compromise are hallmarks of good governance; here the municipality failed miserably,” Martin wrote in his decision.

At a special meeting last April, RM of Thompson Reeve Brian Callum told Cox she was disqualified from her position as a result of missing meetings. Councillors adopted a motion about a month later to formally remove her from her position.

She has been barred from fulfilling her duties as councillor since, despite a petition with about 60 residents’ signatures requesting that council hold its meetings during the evening at least once a month, the decision says.

The municipality then took the matter to court, after the province said that was the only way Cox could be legally disqualified under the Municipal Act.

Meetings changed 

Cox was elected to the role in October 2022. Shortly after, the municipal council changed its bylaw so its regular council meetings would start at 9:30 p.m., rather than alternating between 9:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. as they had previously.

Cox was the only councillor to vote against the change, stating that she could not get time off work during business hours.

After the bylaw change, Cox ended up missing three consecutive meetings between January and March 2023.

Martin said he believed Cox’s argument that the absences were justified because she could not miss work.

“I have no doubt the absences were not a matter of neglect, irresponsibility, or intention to flout her obligations to attend meetings,” the decision says.

“With those changes, it should have been clear she was bound to fail.”

The judge also rejected the municipality’s argument that other councillors also worked full-time, pointing out that these members were business owners who worked for themselves.

“The degree of flexibility they have, being their own boss, is in no way equivalent to the lack of flexibility Ms. Cox had. It was disingenuous to offer this excuse,” Martin wrote.

As a result, the judge ordered that Cox should remain an elected councillor for the municipality.

In a statement emailed to CBC on Thursday, Reeve Callum wrote that the council “acted in accordance with the provisions of The Municipal Act, as well as our duties and obligations to our ratepayers when a councillor has failed to attend meetings and missed three consecutive meetings.”

The RM is considering its appeal options, he wrote.