THUNDER BAY – A Thunder Bay city councillor’s remarks on Facebook about an incident in which a man drove his truck over a tent at a homeless encampment have earned him a rebuke from the city’s integrity commissioner.
A report from Principles Integrity, a firm that provides integrity commissioner services to the city, concludes Coun. Aldo Ruberto violated the city’s code of conduct by improperly commenting on a criminal investigation.
The report recommends sanctioning Ruberto by suspending his pay for five days. It also strongly advises council to consider developing specific guidance for councillors on their use of social media, and specifically whether and when it's appropriate to block other users.
City council will consider the report Monday, but will have up to 90 days to respond to it.
The at-large councillor has stated he strongly disagrees with the report’s conclusions, but said Tuesday he'll reserve further comment until he gets legal advice on how he may respond.
It was a comment posted on Facebook by Ruberto on Oct. 6, 2021 that prompted the complaint to the integrity commissioner (the complainant is not identified in the report).
The previous day, a man had driven a truck over a tent set up at an abandoned gas bar at County Fair Mall. He was soon arrested and charged with dangerous driving.
The use of the structure for shelter and as a gathering place had sparked tensions, with the city days earlier backing down on a plan to fence it off with police support, citing public health concerns.
In a Facebook post, Ruberto wrote the following:
“I hope it is a case of the wind blowing a tent and hitting the truck. And not a truck purposely running over a stationary tent. The safety of people is the ultimate goal.”
He later removed the post, and wrote the following:
“I believe in humans. I think we are all inherently good. I am disappointed by people and their actions. And in this case I was hoping I was right about what could have happened. Remember at the time of my post, it was early in the morning. No one knew if the guy had a stroke, heart attack, passed out etc. ...”
When challenged on his comments by members of the public and a freelance reporter, Ruberto “responded by criticizing the reporter,” the report found.
The report asserts city councillors, as elected officials, should avoid commenting on matters before the courts.
“Commenting on a court proceeding is recognized as inappropriate,” it states. “Even the speculation as to the underlying cause of an incident which is under active police investigation is inappropriate for elected officials and members of Council to engage in. This is particularly the case where an arrest has been made and charges are proceeding, and the speculation posits reasons which would seem to provide exculpatory explanations in aid of the accused.”
The rule is well understood at the provincial and federal levels, but less clear at the municipal level, the report acknowledged.
It also warned comments like Ruberto’s “may become a source of misinformation in the public realm, where it turns out (as here) that they were in error and without any factual foundation.”
The report concluded Ruberto’s general approach to social media is a “problem.”
“He has a tendency to re-post the flotsam of the internet which, when juxtaposed with public service messaging, can be perplexing,” it reads. “This leads to confusion and invites legitimate criticism. The fact that he posts from a ‘personal’ page does not diminish the problem.”
It states his online conduct has led to complaints before, without saying how many.
“Previous complaints were able to be resolved without public report through [Ruberto’s] commitment to course correction,” it reads. “Our guidance to him is and was to exercise better judgment before blurting things out. Unfortunately, it does not appear that our advice has been heeded.”
The document also includes a specific recommendation for Ruberto to create separate personal and council accounts.
The investigation considered whether Ruberto’s decision to block some people on Facebook contravened the code of conduct. It concluded with no findings of wrongdoing, but suggestions for Ruberto and other councillors to be more careful in their use of social media.
There is little clarity in the existing code of conduct on how councillors should handle themselves on social media, the report found.
That doesn’t mean the code doesn’t apply to online conduct, however.
“The Thunder Bay Code of Conduct does not contain a specific provision regarding commenting on law enforcement matters on Facebook or other social media,” it said.
“It is worthy of note that neither do codes of conduct typically list specific prohibitions against lying, swearing, shouting, or other abusive behaviour toward constituents, or proscriptions against attending virtual meetings shirtless, drunk and disheveled. Yet, it would be unreasonable to argue that these behaviours would not be open to examination as breaches of the behavioural standards found in a code of conduct.”
