In two near-unanimous votes of city council, the city’s elected officials opted against docking Ward 7 Coun. Natalie Labbée and Ward 12 Coun. Joscelyne Landry-Altmann 20 days’ pay.
Landry-Altmann faced the penalty for various alleged violations of the city’s Code of Conduct during a public meeting in April, at which city integrity commissioner David Boghosian accused her of being “a prime example of a councillor supporting NIMBYism in its most offensive and vitriolic form.”
Labbée, Boghosian said, publicly maligned city CAO Ed Archer “to distance herself” from last year’s wage hike “in order to salvage her own political fortunes.”
Boghosian recommended that both city council members face a 20-day pay cut as penalties for their Code of Conduct violations.
Instead, a near-unanimous city council voted at Tuesday night’s city council meeting to bring the two members’ sentences down to written reprimands.
The only dissenting vote to amend one of these motions was that of Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc, who wanted Labbée to face an even stiffer penalty. He also voted against the final motion to proceed with a written reprimand.**
Although off the hook financially, Tuesday’s meeting did not afford Landry-Altmann or Labbée vindication.
“It’s still a reprimand,” Mayor Paul Lefebvre told Sudbury.com following Tuesday’s meeting, adding that although wrongdoing has been acknowledged, the fact this was a “first-time offence” for both members factored heavily into their decision against a financial penalty.
Part of the consequences is that both city council members have had to deal with the contents of Boghosian’s report in a public space, Lefebvre said.
Where city council members voted to proceed with integrity commissioner-recommended pay-cut sanctions in the past, it wasn’t their first brush with alleged Code of Conduct violations.
Neither city council member expressed remorse during Tuesday’s meeting, nor apologized for the alleged infractions Boghosian outlined in his report, as the report itself recommended they do.
Landry-Altmann’s alleged breaches
Boghosian’s investigation on Landry-Altmann centred on her conduct during an April 8 Flour Mill Community Action Network meeting.
The meeting at LiUNA Union Hall centred on community opposition to the Sudbury Centre for Transitional Care operating in the Flour Mill community.
In order to advance what Boghosian termed a NIMBY (“not in my backyard”) agenda, Landry-Altmann “engaged in the breach of four fundamental tenets of democracy which are enshrined in the CAN Terms of Engagement and Standard Operating Procedures.”
Boghosian concluded that Landry-Altmann’s actions were “a prime example of a councillor supporting NIMBYism in its most offensive and vitriolic form.”
In the commissioner's analysis, she slanted the meeting against the Sudbury Centre for Transitional Care by stacking its audience with people who oppose the centre and backloading the meeting with a response from those advocating for the centre, by which time Boghosian noted many people had left.
Of the 20 days Boghosian recommended Landry-Altmann be suspended, five were for “maligning the integrity and objectivity of a particular, identified journalist,” which Boghosian describes as a “serious violation of the rules of decorum.”
At the April 8 public meeting, Landry-Altmann kicked out Sudbury.com journalist Jenny Lamothe, after which the city council member could be heard in an audio recording of the meeting saying, “We don’t need the slant of a media person who wasn’t invited here.”
Landry-Altmann defended herself during Tuesday’s city council meeting by saying, “No one was turned away” during the April 8 meeting. She also dismissed various parts of Boghosian’s report using such words as “false,” “utter nonsense,” “invalid,” “prejudicial,” and “categorically false,” claiming there were 24 falsehoods and assumptions in the report.
“Far from showing any contrition, Coun. Landry-Altmann has steadfastly refused to admit any wrongdoing,” Boghosian said on Tuesday, adding that he has grown even more certain after filing his report that she should face a financial penalty.
Landry-Altmann has employed “shameful conduct,” he said, “attempting to use any frivolous technicality she could latch onto to undermine or discredit or even bury (Boghosian’s report on her alleged misconduct) altogether so her conduct would not be exposed.”
At one point after his report was drafted, Boghosian relayed that Landry-Altmann directed the city clerk not to circulate his report, which “is in itself another breach of the Code of Conduct.”
During Tuesday’s meeting, Landry-Altmann said that she was simply standing up for area residents. She closed her remarks by apologizing to area residents for not doing a better job as a municipality to offer services “with a better outcome,” in reference to area residents’ complaints about the Sudbury Centre for Transitional Care.
Labbée’s alleged breaches
Boghosian’s investigation of Labbée centred on her actions earlier this year in reaction to last year’s wage increases to non-union municipal managers.
Last year, city CAO Ed Archer boosted the pay of non-union managers in pay groups 15-18 by six- to eight-per-cent. He followed through with delegated authority a unanimous vote of city council afforded him, using a city council-approved range to increase wages after they’d fallen behind a list of accepted municipal comparators in recent years.
Sudbury.com learned about the wage hikes in March 2024 after receiving an anonymous tip in a package signed, “Honest City Employees.”
Labbée’s response was critical, including an open letter in which she said if she were CAO she would resign over the wage hike issue.
This, despite the fact Labbée voted in favour of giving Archer the delegated authority the city CAO subsequently used, and the lack of evidence that Archer did anything outside of following city council’s direction.
Labbée’s various comments “were motivated by a desire to distance herself from the decision in order to salvage her own political fortunes,” Boghosian wrote.
In addition to admonishing Labbée for publicly maligning Archer, Boghosian recommended she be penalized for “repeated breaches of confidentiality and misleading statements in the name of defending herself.”
Some of these allegedly misleading statements surrounded Labbée’s allegations that city council members were not made aware of the 2023 wage increases until Sudbury.com reported on them in March 2024.
Labbée even went as far as to say she’d fall on her sword if the wage increases’ $520,000 cost were disclosed to city council prior to Sudbury.com’s March 2024 story.
“I have conclusively found that this exact information that she denied knowing, or that existed, had been made available to council prior to March 2024,” Boghosian said on Tuesday.
“Even after I issued my report pointing out the facts that seemingly cannot be denied, Coun. Labbée none-the-less purported to deny them rather than admit any error or oversight.”
Boghosian’s report includes a screenshot of a slide presentation city administrators delivered to city council on Dec. 12, 2023, which includes the $520,067 figure which Labbée claimed was not disclosed to city council. Two city staff members and one city council member are cited in Boghosian’s report as saying that this number was explained to city council during that meeting.
A closed-session report available to city council members in February 2024 also shared information regarding the wage increases, including by what additional percentage wages were increased, according to Boghosian’s report.
Labbée’s “egregious” violations of the city’s Code of Conduct includes spreading false information and “maliciously and recklessly” maligning Archer, Boghosian concluded.
Although she’s a first-time council member, Boghosian said, “The over-the-top and repeated utterings of the same false mantras warrant the 20-day suspension of salary I’ve recommended.” He also reiterated that Labbée should also be made to apologize to Archer for “sharp criticisms that were not founded on the facts.”
Labbée continued to stick to her guns during Tuesday’s meeting, at which she wore purple alongside a small group of people in the gallery who wore the colour in solidarity with her. She also wore a purple button which read “Be Kind.”
“I have remained committed to the message that we were not privy to the details of these raises until we learned it through Sudbury.com,” she said during Tuesday’s meeting.
“I did not misunderstand any information that the integrity commissioner believes we received, I didn’t mislead the public, I didn’t breach confidentiality and I certainly didn’t make statements in order to distance myself from a decision to salvage my own political fortunes,” Labbée said, adding that Boghosian’s report was “very injurious” to her reputation, misquotes her and was “extremely inappropriate.”
Labbée also criticized Sudbury.com’s reporting on this matter as “creating a situation where I’ve personally been taking a great hit to my reputation in the quest of what the truth behind what council was told and when,” and for “casting her” in a “negative light.”
“I also want to take time to address how difficult it is as a woman in politics to speak up and be made to look like a fool, and also have the local media feeding into this,” she added. “No matter what the outcome is today, I know I have the support of so many, and you can bet that I will continue to speak up and hold people accountable as necessary, because that’s what I was elected to do.”
Although Labbée told Sudbury.com prior to the meeting that she had a “bombshell” she’d drop depending “on how things go,” nothing in her statement to council seemed to fit that description.
**Correction: An earlier version of this story stated Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc voted verbally against allowing the motion, but voted for the reprimand when it came time to vote. This was an error. Leduc voted against the amendment in both cases.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
