Mississauga's integrity commissioner is hired — and can be dismissed — by the same council members that officer investigates, and the City has begun choosing a new one. On May 27 council approved a request for proposals to replace the firm that holds the role, which has given notice it will cease operations in January 2027. The term sought is up to four years, renewable for up to four more, and the committee evaluating proposals will recommend an appointment back to council. A lawyer who has testified to provincial legislators on ethics asked how an officer hired by management can then investigate management. The province's Bill 9, which received Royal Assent on June 2, lets the province prescribe a code of conduct for every council once its municipal schedule is proclaimed, but it leaves each council appointing its own commissioner, so it does not change who hires the watchdog.
What happens when a council member breaks the rules
The tension: A penalty ladder whose new top rung, enacted in June 2026 but not yet in force, will need a unanimous vote of the very colleagues being asked to use it — and the commissioner who would climb it leaves in January 2027, with no successor appointment found as of 2026-10-13 and no settled answer to which council chooses one.
Today the most Mississauga's council can do to a member who breaks the Code of Conduct is a reprimand or up to 90 days' pay. In June 2026 the province added removal from office, but it is not yet in force: as of 2026-09-30 Ontario's consolidated Municipal Act still marked it "not in force". When it arrives, removal will need a unanimous council vote, so one member can block it. If that vote fails, the Act will also bar a reprimand or pay suspension for that breach.
The firm that holds the Integrity Commissioner role, which investigates complaints, ceases operations in January 2027, and no successor appointment had been found as of 2026-10-13. Staff have recommended a term ending June 30, 2030, almost all of the next council's term.
The questions below ask what a candidate would do with these powers, and on what terms the investigator should serve.
Resolution Options
Questions you can ask
To: allOnce the new power is in force, if the Integrity Commissioner of Ontario recommends removing a member of council and council's vote fails, the Act will also bar a reprimand or pay suspension for that breach. Will you commit to voting in favour — or state now the specific circumstances in which you would vote no and block every sanction?
To: allOnce the new power is in force, removal will require a unanimous council vote, so a single member can prevent it. Will you support Mississauga formally asking the province to replace unanimity with a threshold that can actually be reached?
To: mayoralIn 2022 Council required the Integrity Commissioner to report every quarter, rather than once a year, on complaints they decide fall outside their jurisdiction. Will you commit to those reports being published, and to council recording a public response to each one?
To: allThe City's Integrity Commissioner ceases operations in January 2027. No successor appointment had been found as of 2026-10-13, and staff have recommended a term ending June 30, 2030, which would cover almost all of the next council's term. Will you commit to a fixed term that cannot be shortened mid-appointment, and state what term length you think protects the commissioner's independence from the members they investigate?
Candidates on record
The full story
Every other issue on this site asks who gets to decide something. This one asks what happens when a decision-maker breaks the rules — because a rule with no consequence attached is a suggestion.
Today, the most a council can do to one of its own members for breaking the Code of Conduct is issue a reprimand or dock up to 90 days’ pay. Council cannot remove a member for it: under the Municipal Act a seat becomes vacant only on grounds the Act sets — among them disqualification, being absent from council meetings for three successive months without council’s authorization, or a court declaring the seat vacant. Nothing in between. A new top rung was passed into law in June 2026 — but as set out below, it is not yet in force.
Mississauga used that ladder in 2022, and the record is worth reading closely
On July 6, 2022, council considered the Integrity Commissioner’s report finding harassment by Councillor Ron Starr — that he had scratched the car of former Councillor Karen Ras in the City Hall parking garage, which the Commissioner found met the definition of workplace harassment under the City’s Respectful Workplace Policy. He recommended suspending 60 days’ pay.
What council did before deciding is the part that matters here. Councillor Starr declared a conflict and did not vote. Council then passed a resolution of its own, moved by Councillor Matt Mahoney and seconded by Councillor Dipika Damerla, committing itself to be “unbiased, open minded, not pre-judging or prejudicing” in considering the report. It carried 11–0.
That resolution is a small admission of something structural. Council was about to sit in judgement on one of its own members, and the safeguard available to it was a promise to try.
Both sides were heard. The Commissioner explained his evidence and answered questions. Starr’s solicitor deputated, said his client denied scratching the car and condemned harassment of any kind, and asked council to receive the report, reject the recommendation, and impose no penalty — or, failing that, to delay any penalty until his court application was decided.
Council imposed it the same day. Resolution 0142-2022 suspended 60 days’ pay, carried 9–2.
Voting for: Mayor Bonnie Crombie, and Councillors Dasko, Mullin, Fonseca, Kovac, Damerla, Mahoney, Saito and McFadden. Voting against: Councillor Carolyn Parrish and Councillor George Carlson.
Councillor Parrish is now the Mayor and is seeking re-election. The minutes do not record why she or Councillor Carlson voted no, and it would be wrong to assume. A vote against a penalty is not a vote for the conduct — there was a live request to defer pending litigation, and reasonable objections could be made about process or proportion. What can be said is that in the 2022 case, a pay suspension — the more severe of the two kinds of penalty council could impose — was not unanimous.
What she was recorded engaging on, however, was the Commissioner’s handling — not the finding against Starr. The Pointer’s report from that meeting has her questioning why the Integrity Commissioner had come to council and apologised for not investigating when Ras first raised the matter with him. “Would it have not been a simple answer to say the investigation was done by police?” she asked. Under the Municipal Act, a commissioner who finds reasonable grounds to believe the Criminal Code or another Act, other than the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, has been broken must refer the matter to the authorities and suspend the inquiry until any resulting police investigation and charge have been finally disposed of — suspend, not end.
We report that carefully and for one reason. It is not her stated reason for voting no, and we still do not have one. It is what the contemporaneous record shows she actually spoke about, and it points at process rather than at whether the conduct deserved a penalty. A reader given only the tally would likely infer something else, and that inference has no support. We have read the July 6 2022 minutes, and they do not record this exchange — only that the Commissioner “responded to inquiries by Members of Council on the process undertaken”, with no attribution to any member. So this rests on a single named outlet, and it is reported, not confirmed.
That is directly relevant to the top rung being added, because that rung will require unanimity.
What changed on paper, and the two catches. The province’s Municipal Accountability Act received Royal Assent on June 2, 2026 — less than five months before this election — adding a top rung: a member can be removed from office and disqualified from council for the four-year period beginning when the seat is declared vacant. The path there is narrow. The breach must be serious, it must have harmed someone’s health, safety or well-being, and a reprimand or pay suspension must be insufficient to deal with it. The municipal Integrity Commissioner must recommend removal, the Integrity Commissioner of Ontario must agree after an inquiry of its own, and then, within 30 days, every member of council entitled to vote must vote in favour. One member declining is enough to stop it, and so is a member who is absent without council’s permission: the only members left out of the count are the member under inquiry, members who are not at the meeting because council has authorized their absence or they are on pregnancy or parental leave, and members with a direct or indirect pecuniary (financial) interest in the matter. If the vote fails, council cannot impose even a reprimand or pay suspension for that breach. And no recommendation can be made between nomination day and voting day; an Ontario inquiry still open on nomination day is terminated that day, and can be started again only if the municipal Integrity Commissioner asks in writing within six weeks after voting day.
The first catch is that none of this is in force yet. The commencement clause of the schedule amending the Municipal Act, 2001 — the one that governs Mississauga — says it “comes into force on a day to be named by order of the Lieutenant Governor in Council.” Royal Assent is not that day. Checked again on 2026-09-30: Ontario’s consolidated Municipal Act still marks every Schedule 2 amendment “not in force”, so on the record available to us the top rung has been enacted and is not yet available. That is a dated negative, not a certainty: if a proclamation has been made, this page should say so and we want to be told.
The second catch is the unanimity, and it only bites once the first is resolved. So the ladder has a top rung that is not yet reachable at all, and that when it arrives can be blocked by any one member.
Worth being precise about the local evidence: the 2022 pay suspension did not require unanimity, and removal was not on the table — but it was a pay suspension, the more severe of the two kinds of penalty council could impose, and it was not unanimous.
The officer who operates this ladder is leaving, and the successor is not yet chosen
The same question is asked on this site about a different officer. Who audits the money, and who they answer to covers the Auditor General Mississauga declined to create — an officer who would watch the money rather than conduct, and who would also be appointed by council. The two pages are separated by subject, not by mechanism: the mechanism question below is the same one asked there, and it is who appoints the overseer, for how long, and whether the reporting line leaves them independent of the people they examine.
A ladder needs someone to climb it. Mississauga’s Integrity Commissioner function is contracted to a firm under a professional services agreement — Principles Integrity, which is the name the City’s own contact page gives for the office.
Council has changed the office’s rules before. On February 9, 2022, by Resolution 0030-2022, it amended the Code of Conduct to require the Integrity Commissioner to report to Council every quarter, rather than once a year, on complaints they decide fall outside their jurisdiction, and to let the Commissioner suspend an investigation while the same matter is before another process, such as a criminal charge, and resume it afterwards. The City announced both changes that day.
They are winding up. A corporate report from the City Solicitor dated May 11, 2026 states that Principles Integrity gave notice they will cease operations effective January 2027, and describes the situation as their retirement. The same report sets out the history: Council appointed the firm by By-law 0151-2023 on September 27, 2023 for a term ending June 30, 2025, then granted a four-year extension that would have run to June 2029. That extension will not be served out.
On May 20, 2026, General Committee recommended that staff issue a request for proposals for a successor, for a term of up to four years renewable for up to four more, with the City Manager, City Solicitor and Clerk as the evaluation committee that will recommend an appointment to Council. Recommendation GC-0278-2026 carried 11 to 0, and Council approved it on May 27, 2026 with the rest of the committee’s report (Resolution 0108-2026, 11 to 0). The report also recommends that the appointment end on June 30, 2030, and explains why: the City’s practice is to have terms expire in June of a council’s final year, so an outgoing council settles the mandate before a new one takes office.
The appointment itself is still to come, and so is the answer to who makes it. The evaluation committee recommends a candidate to Council, and Council appoints. On 2026-09-14 we searched every Council and General Committee agenda and set of minutes published after May 27, up to and including the Council agenda for September 16, 2026, and found no appointment. On 2026-10-13 we searched again, through the agenda for Council’s September 29, 2026 meeting, and found none. The City’s meeting calendar, read that day, lists no Council or General Committee meeting between September 29 and November 16, 2026. The report says the City’s practice is to have a commissioner appointed and in place before an incoming council takes office. If that happens this time, the council elected on October 26, 2026 will work almost its entire term with a commissioner chosen by the council it replaced. If it does not, the choice falls to the new council.
Term length was raised on the record, on three different grounds, by the people now seeking the mayoralty. At that meeting Councillor Alvin Tedjo asked whether the procurement could be structured as a two-year term with renewal options, so council could reassess mid-cycle. Councillor Dipika Damerla asked whether the two-year term could affect the independence of the Integrity Commissioner. Mayor Carolyn Parrish noted that a shorter term could affect the City’s ability to attract high-quality candidates. Committee also directed staff to bring the draft RFP back for members to review.
Tedjo asked about the shorter term; Damerla and Parrish both questioned it, on different grounds — independence and recruitment. A shorter term gives council more frequent control over the officer who investigates council. That is either a democratic check or a source of leverage, depending on which of the three considerations you accept — and it is precisely the kind of choice this site exists to put to candidates rather than to settle.
This is a question about enforcement, not about any individual. The point is whether a candidate will say in advance what they would do with a power that only works if nobody on council refuses to use it — and, now, who they think should hold that power and on what terms.
Fact-check
The maximum penalty an Ontario council can impose on a member for breaching its Code of Conduct is a reprimand or suspension of up to 90 days' pay; council cannot remove a member, and a seat becomes vacant only on grounds the Municipal Act sets in s. 259(1), among them disqualification, absence from council meetings for three successive months without council's authorization, or a court declaring the seat vacant. Bill 9, the Municipal Accountability Act, received Royal Assent on June 2, 2026 (Statutes of Ontario 2026, chapter 6). Corrected 2026-08-11: its Schedule 2, the part that changes the penalties, is not in force. This claim previously read "and came into force that day". The Act's s.2(2) provides that "the Schedules to this Act come into force as provided in each Schedule", and Schedule 2 — the Municipal Act, 2001 schedule, the one governing Mississauga — closes with "Commencement 10 This Schedule comes into force on a day to be named by order of the Lieutenant Governor in Council." Hicks Morley, cited here specifically for the in-force date, says the same in terms: "The Act's substantive provisions—amending the City of Toronto Act, 2006 and the Municipal Act, 2001—will come into force on a future date to be proclaimed, potentially in stages." CHECKED 2026-09-30: Ontario's consolidated Municipal Act on e-Laws marks every Schedule 2 amendment 'not in force' — a dated negative, not a certainty. WHAT THE SCHEDULE WILL DO WHEN PROCLAIMED: add removal from office plus disqualification from council "for the four-year period beginning when the seat is declared vacant" — but only where the municipal Integrity Commissioner recommends it, the Integrity Commissioner of Ontario approves it, AND, within 30 days, council votes UNANIMOUSLY. The unanimity is verbatim at s.223.4.0.4(3): a recommendation "shall be approved only if all members of council, other than the members referred to in subsection (4) who are excluded from taking part in the vote, vote in favour of the recommendation." Excluded members include the member who is the subject of the inquiry. Mississauga has used this ladder: on July 6, 2022, following an Integrity Commissioner finding of harassment against a sitting councillor, council suspended 60 days' pay, with two members voting against. Mississauga's Integrity Commissioner function is contracted to Principles Integrity. On February 9, 2022, by Resolution 0030-2022 at a Special Council meeting, council amended its Code of Conduct to let the Commissioner pause investigations during concurrent legal proceedings and to require quarterly rather than annual reports to Council on complaints the Commissioner decides fall outside their jurisdiction — it did not seek stronger penalties. THE 2022 CASE (added 2026-07-30). The Integrity Commissioner's report (Robert Swayze), as quoted by The Pointer on 2022-06-30, found that Councillor Ron Starr scratched former Councillor Karen Ras's car in the City Hall parking garage on April 13 2021, on a balance of probabilities, and that the single incident met the definition of Workplace Harassment under the City's Respectful Workplace Policy, which the Code of Conduct incorporates by Rule 12. Recommended penalty: 60 days suspension of compensation. FROM THE MINUTES, Council July 6 2022: BEFORE deciding, Council passed Resolution 0141-2022 (moved Mahoney, seconded Damerla, carried 11-0) committing itself to be "unbiased, open minded, not pre-judging or prejudicing". Starr declared a conflict on all three related items. His solicitor Emilio Bisceglia deputated, denied the act, and asked Council to reject the recommendation or delay any penalty until his Divisional Court application concluded. RESOLUTION 0142-2022 (moved Mahoney, seconded McFadden): 60 days suspension, CARRIED 9 TO 2. YES: Mayor Crombie, Dasko, Mullin, Fonseca, Kovac, Damerla, Mahoney, Saito, McFadden. NO: Councillor C. Parrish and Councillor G. Carlson. Conflict: Starr. Starr had already applied to the Divisional Court (Starr v. City of Mississauga et al.); the City Solicitor's closed-session update on it was received as GC-0506-2022, in General Committee Report 13-2022 dated June 29, 2022. PARRISH'S RECORDED PARTICIPATION, ADDED 2026-08-01 — tiered REPORTED, one named outlet. Corrected 2026-08-11: this read "minutes not obtained" and the published page told readers "the minutes, which we were unable to obtain". BOTH WRONG, AND CONTRADICTED BY THIS ENTRY'S OWN CITATION OF THE JULY 6 2022 MINUTES, marked "read in full", which names two resolutions from them. The minutes WERE obtained and read; they simply do not record this exchange, noting only that the Commissioner "responded to inquiries by Members of Council on the process undertaken" with no attribution. The tier is REPORTED because the minutes are SILENT, not because they were unavailable — a page that says it could not get a document it did get understates its own evidence and misstates why it hedged. The Pointer's contemporaneous report of the July 6 2022 meeting records Councillor Parrish questioning the INTEGRITY COMMISSIONER'S HANDLING rather than the finding against Starr: she asked why Commissioner Swayze had come to council and apologised for not investigating when Ras first raised the matter with him, saying, and we quote The Pointer's rendering: Would it have not been a simple answer to say the investigation was done by police? (Under s. 223.8 of the Municipal Act a commissioner who finds reasonable grounds to believe the Criminal Code or another Act, other than the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, was broken must refer the matter and suspend the inquiry until any resulting police investigation and charge have been finally disposed of; the inquiry is suspended, not ended.) THIS IS NOT HER STATED REASON FOR VOTING NO and must never be written as one — it is what the record shows she spoke about, and it points at process rather than at whether the conduct merited a penalty. It is published on the Core Issue because that page already names her vote, and a reader given only the 9-2 tally would likely infer something the evidence does not support. NO CANDIDATE ENGAGEMENT ENTRY WAS CREATED, deliberately: questioning a commissioner's process is not a position on the sanctions ladder, and the standing doctrine (ambiguous votes are not positions) governs. Revisit only if her reason is found in the minutes or in her own words. ⚠️ ADDED 2026-09-01 — THE OFFICER WHO OPERATES THIS LADDER IS LEAVING. Mississauga's Integrity Commissioner function is contracted to a firm, appointed by By-law 0151-2023 with a professional services agreement: the City's own Integrity Commissioner page publishes Principles Integrity as the contact for the office. Per the corporate report 'Procurement of Integrity Commissioner Services' dated 2026-05-11: Council appointed the firm by By-law 0151-2023 on September 27, 2023 for a term ending June 30, 2025, then granted a four-year extension to June 2029; 'Principles Integrity have provided notice that they will cease operations effective January 2027'; and the City attributes the change to the firm's retirement. The May 27, 2026 Council recap states the reason in the City's own words: 'The change is needed because the current Integrity Commissioner is ending their role in January 2027.' On May 20, 2026 General Committee recommended an RFP for a successor for a term of up to four years renewable for up to four more, with the City Manager, City Solicitor and Clerk as the evaluation committee that will recommend an appointment to Council — GC-0278-2026, carried 11 to 0 — and Council approved it on May 27, 2026 by Resolution 0108-2026, adopting the committee's report 11 to 0. The report further recommends that the appointment end on June 30, 2030; that date is in the report's discussion, not in the recommendation Council approved. The report explains the June-of-the-final-year practice as deliberate, so an outgoing council settles the mandate before a new one takes office. CONSEQUENCE, STATED AS ARITHMETIC AND NOT AS A CRITICISM: if Council appoints the successor before the incoming council takes office, as the report describes as the City's practice, the council elected on October 26, 2026 will serve almost its entire term with a commissioner selected by its predecessor; if it does not, the choice falls to the new council. TERM LENGTH WAS RAISED BY THREE MAYORAL CANDIDATES ON THREE DIFFERENT GROUNDS — reassessment, independence and recruitment — on the record at that meeting — Tedjo asked whether it could be a two-year term with renewal options; Damerla asked whether the two-year term could affect the independence of the Integrity Commissioner; Parrish noted a shorter term could affect attracting high-quality candidates. Tedjo asked about the shorter term; Damerla and Parrish both questioned it, for different reasons (independence and recruitment), and the reasons must not be flattened into one. ⚠️ NOT ESTABLISHED AND NOT ASSERTED: why Principles Integrity holds the office at all, given that Council appointed Robert Swayze on June 2, 2021 to a four-year term running July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2025 and the firm's appointment is dated December 2023 (By-law 0151-2023 was passed on September 27, 2023), well inside that term. No source read establishes the reason. The September 2023 item behind By-law 0151-2023 would settle it.