Ontario councillor receives 60-day pay suspension

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story failed to adequately capture the exact nature of the motions that were tabled by the councillor. The story also did not make clear that the quotes attributed to the councillor in the integrity commissioner’s report were actually paraphrases of the councillor’s notices of motion by the integrity commissioner. CTV News Toronto apologizes for any confusion. 

Pickering Coun. Lisa Robinson has received another pay suspension due to conduct the city’s integrity commissioner says amounted to “homophobic and transphobic behaviour.”

Robinson made headlines last month when she compared her first 30-day pay suspension – a demerit she received due to alleged bullying in her community – to “modern-day slavery.”

This month’s pay cut, a 60-day wage suspension, follows complaints filed to the city’s integrity commissioner about Robinson’s conduct at a Durham District School Board meeting in May.

According to council minutes dated Oct. 23, Robinson attended the school board meeting and, using a bullhorn microphone, addressed a “large and occasionally unruly” crowd about motions she intended to bring to council the following week.

The first of those motions called for only “federal, provincial and municipal flags to be permitted to be raised in all public spaces,” with an exception to also allow the Poppy flag and Veterans flag. It stated that by allowing “non-government flags” the city would effectively be “favouring one group over another.”

The second motion took aim at drag shows and pride parades, stating that both amount to “adult live performances.” That motion called for Pickering to prohibit “a person from knowingly admitting a child” to such an event, and if “any licensed public lodging or public food service establishment” violates that policy, they should have their license “suspended or revoked.”

The third motion concerned the co-ed change room at Chestnut Hill Recreation Complex, which she charged “gives an opportunity for predators to be alone with vulnerable children.” Robinson stated in the motion that in order to “minimize the risks of predators preying [sic] on children who are not accompanied by an adult,” the members’ only male and female change rooms should be made available to all individuals of the corresponding genders. Robinson said that the co-ed changeroom could be “inclusive to all genders and or families.”

In her report, the integrity commissioner found that in making the remarks Robinson “promoted attitudes which are homophobic and transphobic.” It also found that the motions she attempted to bring forward “would not withstand scrutiny under Ontario’s Human Rights Code.”

“Whether it is the targeted removal of the flag raising opportunity from the LGBTQ2S+ community, the targeted prohibition of pride parades, banning drag queens from engaging in story-reading to children at the library, or implying that gender-neutral change rooms are in any way putting children at risk, we find the councillor’s conduct in promoting the motions on the steps of the DDSB office to constitute homophobic and transphobic behaviour,” the report notes.

In her report, the integrity commissioner found there had been no allegations of "predators alone with vulnerable children" inside coed change rooms, as Robinson had suggested in her remarks at the DDSB.

With regards to the second motion concerning some pride events, the integrity commissioner said that while Robinson framed it in terms of “drag shows” it “clearly targets drag queen story time along with pride parades.” The integrity commissioner went on to say that Robinson has “never been to see a drag queen story time,” and that she made inaccurate comments about “gyrating and shaking” during these events citing only her personal experience at traditional drag shows.

The integrity commissioner did acknowledge in her report that Robinson’s remarks did not contain ‘hateful rhetoric’ or amount to ‘hate speech.”

But said that her suggestion that she was “merely reflecting the views of her constituents” should not excuse the conduct.

“This cannot justify positions publicly stated which must be seen as contrary to Human Rights protected positions,” the report notes.

In a post to her personal Facebook page, Robinson called the findings “disconcerning” [sic], saying the City of Pickering “actively exacerbates the divide among individuals who are peacefully protesting for opposing views.”

“This deliberate action of fueling the fire only serves two [sic] deepen the existing divisions within society,” she said.