Audit and finance committee meeting minutes prompts 35-minute debate
The passage of the audit and finance committee meeting minutes from the July 22 meeting came up at the Sept. 14 meeting of council, with one member taking issue on what was reflected in them.
Councillor Diane Pouget took issue with the minutes, stating “I do not believe these minutes reflect what actually happened there.” She referenced a motion from committee member John Purdie, seconded by Gordon Moore, that asked for two new council appointees be named to the committee.
Pouget said in the new business portion, the minutes are “deceiving” and that Purdie and Moore made the same motion asking that Deputy Mayor Chris Gibb and Councillor Linden Crain be replaced with two other members of council.
“They felt they had no voice on council and lost confidence in this committee,” said Pouget. “Their voices were not being heard as professionals.”
Pouget alleged that Purdie and Moore were being “undermined” and said clerk Kevin Fox would not allow the motion.
Fox said there was a motion introduced at the committee that was out of order, known as ultra vires, or outside the committee’s mandate.
“If a body doesn’t have the power or jurisdiction to be able to move a motion, than that motion is out of order,” he said. “That’s not a determination a clerk makes. It’s certainly a recommendation a clerk makes. I made that recommendation to their chair based upon the mandate the committee has.”The chair upheld the recommendation that it was ultra vires and out of scope and thus not recorded in the minutes as “it never should have taken place in the first place.”
There were no further meetings scheduled, said Fox, as the committee meets when required for financial reporting reasons. The next meeting is to review the budget, which is when the mayor brings forth the budget next term.
Pouget noted other committees are still meeting, listing some that are scheduled after the Oct. 26 election. She said there are other issues that committee members have that deserve answers.
Mayor Michael Prue said the motions made by the committee can be brought forth easily, “you just have to move them.” When year-end financials were presented to council, Fox said the questions raised in the motions “were answered for council’s consideration.”
Fox later said clerks only record decisions, not notes or comments.
Councillor Don McArthur said “minutes are minutes and news stories are news stories.” He noted minutes are a record of actions taken by a body and are official records under the Municipal Act.
“Nothing prevents anyone from watching that meeting and summing it up in a blog, putting it out on Facebook, it’s free and out there for anyone to see,” said McArthur.
“It belongs in the news stories, it belongs in social media, it does not belong in the approved minutes,” he said.
Crain said he looks at council as a team, not a place where members “try to score political points or make personal accusations.”
“The 2026 budget was just over $75 million. I think with the limited amount of time we are in this room, on the taxpayers’ dime, it is extremely disappointing that we’re rehashing a meeting that took place in July,” said Crain.
Crain acknowledged he and Gibb were asked to be removed from the committee but that was not in the committee’s purview to request.
“We’re wasting taxpayers’ dollars talking about a number of accusations that were mentioned in this meeting,” he maintained.
Crain claimed it was “a misuse of taxpayers’ money” and that the town’s time was not being managed appropriately.
“The decisions we are making right now do not, in any way, improve the Town of Amherstburg. It does not follow along with our vision, our mission, our values,” said Crain. “I don’t see what the result is of this, that I was asked to be removed from the committee.”
Crain added “we’re getting in the weeds of things. It’s disappointing we’re using this time on something that is not worthwhile.”
Pouget believed her opinion is “totally contrary” to what Crain said and noted Purdie, a chartered accountant, made 44 recommendations to reduce the budget by $700,000.
“You never brought it back to council and you didn’t even have the courtesy to second the motions,” Pouget told Crain.
“Point of information – it was brought back to this council,” Crain responded.
Fox said “there were a lot of allegations made at that meeting and the committee charged me with researching the facts as they were.” He said the information was provided to committee members to “set the record straight” and shared it on the public record.
Fox’s statements to the committee said that minutes from the Dec. 1 committee meeting were provided to town council Dec. 8. According to Fox, motions from that meeting were brought forward to council during those deliberations by Crain and Gibb.
The lengthy comments were read into the record by Fox, including statements on how town council wished to proceed on how to go forward with comments from the committee during budget. It was decided in March 2025 that any recommendations to the committee would come through their meeting minutes.
Fox noted advisory bodies provide advice and recommendations and serve at the will of town council. “The will of council is expressed through its policies, bylaws, resolutions, and strategic guiding documents and inform such matters. In fact, the training provided reinforces that members serving on two bodies actually have a dual responsibility and as such should and will often consider the body they are representing at the time and its mandate in what they speak to and how they vote. Training on this point was provided directly by the Integrity Commissioner as part of those materials,” he said.
Regarding the motion to appoint two new council members that was raised July 22, the matter was deferred until the new business portion of that evening’s agenda.
“Under New Business, the motion was read back to the Committee, noting that this would be the last meeting of their term. The Clerk also noted that the motion was ultra vires as it was outside of the scope of the committee’s mandate and should not be something that committee considers. The Chair agreed with that assessment and ruled that the Committee does not have such authority. As such, the motion is ultra vires and will not appear in the minutes,” Fox’s statement read.
Fox continued: “As to the question of whether or not the Committee’s recommendations were provided to Council, As to the question of whether the minutes were provided in a timely manner, I would suspect that providing the meeting minutes of Dec. 1 on Dec. 8 represents an exceptionally timely response.”
It was also stated by the clerk that committee members do not have the ability to make a recommendation to remove council members on their committee. He also said there is no requirement for committee members to have professional accreditation in good standing in the associated field in order to serve.
Gibb called it “perhaps the saddest thing I have ever seen happen in this chamber in the last four years.”
“You take a valuable committee and certain members of that committee decide to use it as a political pawn,” he charged. “Councillor Pouget stated she’s been to every audit and finance committee (meeting) but we wait six weeks before an election to bring this up. This could have been brought up any time over the last four years, but it wasn’t.”Gibb added Crain came to council and asked if they wanted to hear from the committee directly. He said council decided the minutes would suffice.
“Maybe that’s because it’s become a political pawn in a big game we’ve played in the last four years,” said Gibb. “Anybody who wants to keep going this way, I just don’t understand it. We have over $1 million in staff salaries sitting in this room and we’ve wasted half-an-hour in a political witch hunt.”
A series of motions raised by Pouget relating to what came out of committee meetings were defeated . Pouget also called for new meeting dates for the committee to be held and that instruction be sent to the new council but that didn’t go forward.
Audit and finance committee meeting minutes prompts 35-minute debate
By Ron Giofu
Comments