By Kelly Allard

Community TV / The Trash Panda’s newest contributor Alex McCuaig obtained the unredacted Kingsgate Report and made it available to us. Alex highlighted all the redacted parts.

I am so excited to welcome Alex to the team, I have admired his writing for years! This is from his X (formerly known as Twitter) profile.

“Freelance reporter formerly w/Brooks Bulletin, Medicine Hat News, CHAT News,Western Producer. Former CoS to #ableg speaker”

I attached the reasons for each redaction to the unredacted document, just open the comments part of the pdf file. At times the redactions appear to be nonsensical.

I’m going to break it down into smaller pieces. The 34 pages can be better absorbed in smaller portions.

The way this report was redacted certainly raises a lot of questions on how the FOIP Act is applied at City Hall. The FOIP Act allows a person to allow their information to be released. Section 40 (d) of the FOIP Act says

“Disclosure of personal information
40(1) A public body may disclose personal information only
(d) if the individual the information is about has identified the information and consented, in the prescribed manner, to the disclosure”

Starting at about the 39 minute mark in my interview with Mayor Clark, we talked about the redactions. Clark said that she could consent to reveal her personal information. She said she was not part of the redaction conversation and that she found out about the redactions when everybody else did.

Kingsgate Report Redaction Analysis Part 1

Redacted Portions in Bold

My analysis /comments in italic

Page 1

The names of the Complainant Councillor Shila Sharps and the Respondent Mayor Linnsie Clark were redacted for the following reasons.

(These reasons are cited numerous times in the document.)

17 (4) d, 17 (4) f
(4) A disclosure of personal information is presumed to be an unreasonable invasion of a third party’s personal privacy if
(d) the personal information relates to employment or educational history,
(f) the personal information consists of personal recommendations or evaluations, character references or personnel evaluations,

I am at a loss to understand how the above portions of the Act apply here. It was pretty obvious who the parties were. The Mayor was the one sanctioned and Councillor Sharps did not attend the March 21 2024 Municipal Mutiny so it was obvious who the Complainant was.

Page 3

5 The Complainant alleges that during the discussion of the divisional realignment the Respondent contravened the Code by:
a) failing to inform Council, in advance, that the Respondent had personally obtained an external legal opinion on this matter, thereby “blindsiding” Council, and
b) failing to treat the City Manager fairly and with courtesy, dignity, and respect, without engaging in abuse, bullying or intimidation or maliciously or falsely damaging the professional or ethical reputation of the City Manager.

6 The Respondent denies the allegations and submits that she was doing her statutory duty during the meeting and that her conduct is not properly subject to any sanction.

Disclosure harmful to personal privacy
17 (4) d, 17 (4) f
(4) A disclosure of personal information is presumed to be an unreasonable invasion of a third party’s personal privacy if
(d) the personal information relates to employment or educational history,
(f) the personal information consists of personal recommendations or evaluations, character references or personnel evaluations,

Once again, the redactions don’t make sense

5 Whose privacy was being protected? Why was the public not entitled to know exactly what the allegations were?

5a) The Mayor obtained an external legal opinion without notifying Council in advance; Council was blindsided.

NB - Individual Council members are not permitted to direct any staff member to do anything, that includes directing the City Solicitor. City Manager Ann MItchell does have the power to get a legal opinion from the City Solicitor. According to Mayor Clark Mitchell said she did obtain a legal opinion from the City Solicitor. Clark says that the alleged opinion has never been produced by Mitchell.

Given that the City Manager has the power to hire and fire anybody, I know I would have sought out an external legal opinion to avoid any perception of bias.

The public was blindsided by Council bypassing Administrative Organization Bylaw 4662, as well as the staff. All bylaw changes are to be done in a public meeting, not behind closed doors. The public was shocked by Council rubber stamping the actions of the City Manager.

I’m not sure what the problem was. Was it because Council maybe should have obtained one of their own instead of blindly following the advice of the City Manager who insisted she had the power to bypass Bylaw 4662?

Would Council have voted differently if they knew about the external legal opinion?

5 b) Why was this redacted? It is cited on page 34 of the unredacted document, why redact this portion at all?

6 Mayor Clark stated that she denied the allegations.

Why was that redacted? Surely we already knew that.

Clark stated that she believed she was doing her statutory duty.

Why was that redacted?

Page 6

1 On September 13, 2023, the Respondent acknowledged receipt of the investigator’s introductory email by reply email and requested an opportunity to correct what are in my view factual errors and in my view and/or establish an agreed statement of facts, prior to the investigator making its decision whether to proceed to investigate the complaint or not, pursuant to section 16.1(e).”

Disclosure harmful to personal privacy
17 (4) d, 17 (4) f
(4) A disclosure of personal information is presumed to be an unreasonable invasion of a third party’s personal privacy if
(d) the personal information relates to employment or educational history,
(f) the personal information consists of personal recommendations or evaluations, character references or personnel evaluations,

Once again, the redactions don’t make sense.

Why was the public not allowed to know that Mayor Clark wanted a chance to correct errors and produce an agreed statement of facts? How is that harmful to anybody’s personal privacy?

Page 7

28 On October 6, 2023, the investigator emailed the Respondent to advise that the investigation

...is primarily focused on whether your questioning of the City Manager in open session during the August 21st Council meeting, including the tone and tenor of that questioning, may have breached one or more clauses of Section 8 of the Code (Respectful Interactions with Council Members, Staff, the Public and Others). A secondary issue is whether “blindsiding” Council by obtaining a personal legal opinion and first raising the matter of potential legal ramifications with Council at the August 21st meeting, as Councillor Sharps alleges, may have breached one or more clauses of Section 4 of the Cose (representing the Municipality) or Section 5 (Communicating on Behalf of Council.)

As you pointed out in your “Preliminary Statement of Fact, received on September 25th (and as Councillor Sharps has subsequently acknowledged to me) the August 14, 2023, “strategy/performance management meeting” was not a regular (or special) Council meeting and no Council decisions (i.e. resolutions) had been made in relation to the reorg prior to the Aug 21 adoption of certain amendments to the AO Bylaw.

29 On October 10, 2023 the Respondent emailed the investigator to request copies of “all correspondence, notes and documentation thereof, including without limitation text, phone, or email correspondence” (...) “to or from any employee of the City or member of Council” related to the Respondent’s exchange with the City Manager during the August 21, 2023 meeting.

30 On the same day, by reply email, the investigator advised the Respondent to contact the City’s FOIP office for any information requests and reminded the Respondent that the focus of the investigation was on “the actual events that transpired at the August 21st Council meeting, specifically, your questioning of the City Manager and the presentation (continued on page 8) of the legal opinion in open session.” Further, the investigator requested the Respondent’s availability for an interview.

Disclosure harmful to personal privacy
17 (4) A disclosure of personal information is presumed to be an unreasonable invasion of a third party’s personal privacy if
(g) the personal information consists of the third party’s name when
(i) it appears with other personal information about the third party, or
(ii) the disclosure of the name itself would reveal personal information about the third party,

28 Again, why was the public not permitted to know what the allegations were?

Whose privacy was being protected when Councillor Sharps’ name was redacted?

29 Why was the public not permitted to know that Mayor Clark wanted to know what was being said about the August 21 2023 exchange after the fact? In my own FOIP I have noticed city staff gossiping about myself and others.

30 Why was the public not permitted to know that the investigator told Mayor Clark to go FOIP the requested information?