You no doubt remember the huge kerfuffle last spring over our alleged violation of the City’s new Respectful Workplace Policy. Our spokesperson, Mike Sullivan, was denied access to City buildings for three months for his deputations on February 26, 2024 to Council, when he presented our concerns regarding rezoning of the Bradshaw Lofts, the City’s progress on climate change actions, and Stratford’s misuse of closed meetings.

Recordings of these deputations are all available on the City website, and they are discussed in detail on our site. Perhaps you can see where our deputations threatened or intimidated staff or members of Council. We can’t. 

We didn’t even know about the ban until early April, when a letter arrived informing us of it. Even then, the letter was vague, and we couldn’t figure out the rationale for excluding our representative.

As a donor-supported organization, we are very conscious of our expenditures. However, we felt we needed to obtain legal advice, and consulted our lawyer, David Donnelly, who wrote to request some kind of formal identification of wrongful behaviour. When the formal written allegations arrived, written on May 6, 2024, more than eight weeks after the alleged incident, it took us quite a while to sort out what Mike was being accused of. We have serious concerns about some of the claims in this document.

Donnelly later wrote to Police Chief Skinner, to give advance notice regarding our intention to attend an upcoming rezoning meeting for the Krug development on Trinity Street. He emphasized that our participation would be civil and lawful, and warned Chief Skinner of the legal dangers of using law enforcement to prevent us from exercising rights accorded us by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The police were in attendance at the open community meeting for Trinity Street, but did not intervene. The beginning of the meeting was delayed by 20 minutes as Mayor Ritsma discussed the situation with police, and then spoke to Mike Sullivan, who was seated in the audience. No action was taken against Mike, but the meeting was cancelled.

Directly after the meeting, Mayor Ritsma was interviewed by Get Concerned Stratford (see below). He stated that he had cancelled the meeting because he felt he was dealing with “an unsafe situation.” We feel this is an attack on Mike Sullivan’s reputation, and a disservice to the people in the Trinity Street neighbourhood, who were there to make deputations about the Krug project.

We were disappointed by Mayor Ritsma’s decision to cancel, as we had researched an informative and hopefully useful presentation on problems with the rezoning of the Krug factory and its projected ten-storey tower. (This rezoning is now being appealed by CN Rail).

We subsequently appealed the ban, and Mike Sullivan was interviewed Mr. G. Roach, a human resources professional hired by the City. We have yet to learn his recommendation. The CAO is a complainant in this case. We would never have consented to an interview with Mr. Roach if we had known the adjudicator was also a complainant. We have now received letters from the CAO denying our appeal.

We have followed the rules. We tried on many occasions to discuss the problem with City representatives. We wanted to work out an understanding that criticism is part of the democratic process, but we have been unsuccessful. We have been assured by our lawyer that the City has no case. We shared his advice in conversations with the City, but they remain unconvinced.

We have exhausted all possibilities, and without open and accountable governance it will be impossible for us to work on the issues that concern us.

As taxpayers, we are strongly against solving this problem through the courts, but the City of Stratford has left us no other choice. We intend to follow the most cost-effective way to defend our Charter rights in the running of our municipal government. We will challenge the legality of Stratford’s Respectful Workplace Policy in Ontario courts . Mike Sullivan intends to sue for defamation, and will include city representatives and individual staff in his complaint.

We welcome your comments.