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Mono deputy mayor defends against integrity ruling

March 13, 2025   ·   1 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS

While he respects a ruling by the town’s integrity commissioner, Mono Deputy Mayor Fred Nix doesn’t agree that he was in a conflict of interest when he participated in a discussion about the Bruce Trail Conservancy.

He outlined the reasons why he doesn’t agree with Integrity Commissioner Guy Giorno in a five-page response to the decision.

Giorno outlined the complaint and explained his decision in a Feb. 1 evaluation that was brought to council during its Feb. 11 meeting.

Nix was found to have been in a conflict of interest when he participated in a council decision in October 2024 that allowed the Caledon Hills Club of The Bruce Trail Conservancy (BTC) to use municipal land.

Mono resident Elaine Kehoe filed the complaint.

During previous town council meetings, Nix would recuse himself from discussions regarding the BTC to avoid any conflicts of interest from his past involvement with the group. But he said during the October meeting that, in conversations with Mike Dunmore, the town’s CAO, and Fred Simpson, the town’s clerk, he was told he wouldn’t be in a conflict for taking in the club’s presentation to council.

“So I’ll be staying for the presentation,” Nix said during the meeting, according to the decision.

There were three road sections remaining on the trail in the south half of Mono and each of those sections were about one kilometre long. One of the properties the club needed to fulfill its plans is owned by the municipality. Another is privately owned by an Ottawa resident who hasn’t seen the parcel of land in about 25 years, council was told during the October BTC presentation.

The BTC obtained a “handshake agreement” with that landowner to use the property for the trail.

Conservancy representatives asked the town’s permission to use its parcel of land on which to build part of the trail. And, over the longer term, the town was asked to investigate if they will need the property.

If it was to be deemed surplus land, council was told that the conservancy would be in the market to buy it. Town council ultimately voted to allow the BTC use of the land and council waived the requirement that the BTC pay a parkland levy.

Kehoe took issue following the meeting with how Nix previously recused himself from past issues relating to the trail for fear of a possible conflict of interest. But then he proposed during the Oct. 22 meeting a motion “that allowed a handshake deal with Caledon hikers” and it was passed.

“If he had to excuse himself every meeting when the Bruce Trail came up because of a conflict of interest, how can he present a motion that was passed?” she said.

Giorno ultimately ruled that Nix indeed had an indirect pecuniary interest in the October motion that should have been declared orally and in writing.

Further, Nix should not have moved the motion or participated in decision-making on it, and, consequently, he contravened section 5 and section 5.1 of the (Municipal Conflict of Interest Act), Giorno wrote.

“Had Mr. Nix made different choices, this inquiry could have been avoided,” Giorno wrote. “Based on my previous advice to him, and other factors, he should not have participated in the decision.”

Violating the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act is a serious accusation and that’s why Nix was compelled to write his response.

He said he recused himself from previous discussions that had a financial bearing on the BTC and the town. While he agrees the BTC benefits from the October 2024 land decision, there is no financial boon for the group. The benefit to the BTC, he said, is in furthering its vision by extending its trail.

Nix holds that a pecuniary interest is any interest involving money.

In the reasons for his decision, Giorno wrote that “this case involves land. Land has value. The value of land is a pecuniary interest. The Bruce Trail Conservancy routinely pays for land, and it was interested in purchasing this land. That is evidence of a financial or economic interest: in other words, a pecuniary interest. Just as land has value, the use of land has value.”

Nix countered that the BTC’s finances didn’t change with council’s land decision.

“It continues to receive money from membership fees and donations, but the actual amount of dollars flowing into the BTC does not change as a result of the (land) decision,” he said in his response. “Revenues and expenses stay the same.”

Nix said it hadn’t been proven that the conservancy’s economic prospects had changed because of the October decision and he finds it difficult to believe the value of BTC assets was impacted.

“In deciding the particular issue of land value, it must be recognized that when the ‘handshake’ agreement is drawn up, it will allow the owner of the land (the town) to kick the BTC off whenever it feels like it,” Nix said. “I have had this experience once before when I had a weekend to decommission a section of the main trail and re-route hikers along the Hockley Road.”

Nix said he agreed with Giorno that the BTC benefits from being permitted to build a piece of trail on vacant town land. But it isn’t of a pecuniary value.

And Nix said hikers who will use the trail benefit intangibly.

“The logic here of the commissioner’s argument escapes me: volunteers building a trail somehow trigger a pecuniary benefit, yet the hikers who use this trail trigger an intangible benefit,” Nix said. “Of course, I will respect the integrity commissioner’s ruling (that I violated the MCIA) and henceforth will declare an indirect conflict of interest at any point anyone in the council chamber even breathes the words ‘Bruce Trail.’

“But, to the best of my knowledge, I have the right to freely have my own opinion and have the right to express such opinion. With respect, Mr. Integrity Commissioner, I disagree with your ruling.”

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