The City of Greater Sudbury’s Integrity Commissioner is pursuing an investigation into a meeting of the Flour Mill Community Action Network (CAN) that was held April 8.
This according to email correspondence from commissioner David Boghosian sent May 14, requesting copies of the videos and recordings that were supplied to Sudbury.com by those who attended the meeting.
Sudbury.com did agree to provide the requested material to the integrity commissioner only after obtaining the express permission from those who recorded them.
When we asked Boghosian for further details, he replied “unfortunately, I will not be able to provide any details of my investigation until I issue a report, if any, as my investigation is confidential.”
The meeting in question was organized by the CAN with a stated aim of offering an opportunity for residents and business owners near the Sudbury Centre for Transitional Care (SCTC), located at Notre Dame Avenue and King Street, to air their concerns about the centre, its clients and what residents see as the impact it is having on their neighbourhood.
The SCTC drop-in centre for the vulnerable community of Sudbury opened in 2021 and partnered with the City of Greater Sudbury to extend its hours. The SCTC contract with the city was valued at $75,125 and ran until April 30.
Sudbury.com was invited by community members to attend the meeting, which we understood to be public. However, we were asked to leave by Ward 12 Coun. Joscelyne Landry-Altmann before the meeting began.
We were able to report on the meeting thanks to several readers who provided video coverage of approximately two hours of the three-hour meeting.
The next day, Sudbury.com contacted the city for clarification about the rules for CAN meetings. The communications department confirmed in a written response that "CANs are open and inclusive to all."
Greater Sudbury has 20 distinct Community Action Networks (CANs), one for each of the 12 wards plus eight others that are subsets of the wards (the South End has a CAN for instance even though it isn’t a ward itself).
“The City of Greater Sudbury (CGS) established Community Action Networks (CANs) to provide a line of communication between the community and the City, and to help with the planning and implementation of community initiatives. CANs bring citizens together to build strong, engaged communities, foster civic engagement and encourage public participation in local and municipal projects,” states the CAN terms of engagement on the city’s website.
Even the executive meetings of each individual CAN are open to the public, as stipulated in the city's CAN operational guidelines, which state, "All Executive meetings are open to CAN members and the public." As well, the city's terms of engagement for CANs state that they are supposed to be "open and transparent to the public."
Before opening the meeting, the videos Sudbury.com reviewed showed Landry-Altmann warning the audience that they should not record the meeting, and later, appear to indicate Landry-Altmann was deciding who could speak and couldn’t speak at the meeting.
Jenny Lamothe is a reporter with Sudbury.com.