REGINA - Councillor Andrew Stevens will not face any further disciplinary action for his latest breach of the Code of Ethics bylaw.
The ethics breach -- which was the second such allegation made against Stevens this year -- stemmed from an complaint made by Councillor Terina Nelson over an incident last July 4, 2022, when Stevens circulated confidential contents of a report received from the Ethics Commissioner in connection to the ethics complaints at that time against Nelson.
The complaint had alleged Stevens violated confidentiality by sending the contents of the confidential report in an email to all other members of council, as well as the Acting City Clerk, Acting City Manager and City Solicitor.
Acting Integrity Commissioner Randy Langgard had issued his findings and had recommended censuring or reprimanding Stevens for disclosing the confidential report, and for Stevens provide a written apology to Nelson with respect to the matter.
But in the end council opted against any further action against Stevens, in part based on what they heard from Stevens and Nelson about the incident during Wednesday's council meeting.
Nelson indicated to council that initially she wasn’t going to bring this issue forward and “didn’t think it was a big deal.” But she said she changed her mind after hearing other councillors say they believed Stevens violated confidentiality but could not prove it.
“So I sat there and felt guilty because I knew I could prove it,” said Nelson.
“I felt guilty that I knew of a breach of confidentiality, I could prove a breach of confidentiality, and that I as a responsible elected official did not do my job by reporting this.”
When Stevens spoke to council he called the incident a “two part error on my part and I accept responsibility.”
He said the first mistake was that he believed the city solicitor and city clerk were included as “within the sphere of confidentiality” under the Code of Ethics, and “I was wrong.” The second mistake was to include other members of council in a thread that shared the report.
Stevens said he had apologized to Councillor Nelson for this mishap when it was discussed in private, and at the time he believed they had “forged a positive working relationship.” But on that point, he said “I was wrong.”
“If I wanted to cause reputational damage to the councillor I would have posted the report on social media or shared it with the media as I was asked to do. Humiliating the councillor was never my intention and certainly not now…
"I thought we had moved on. Evidently the councillor had other plans and chose to advance a complaint months after the incident as a form of reprisal.”
He said that if “council decides the most expensive email mistake in council history warrants discipline, that’s your prerogative. But the apology is another matter. Whatever remorse I initially possessed has since evaporated… it tells me the commissioner process is being weaponized by the councillor.”
In the discussion that followed, Councillor Dan LeBlanc made the motion calling for no sanction or action against Stevens, saying it was plain from the integrity commissioner’s report this was “something of a technical breach”.
He said it was not obvious Stevens intended to forward this and there was no finding of bad faith — he was, at least, “careless.”He also said that for breaches of confidentiality, sharing with the city solicitor, city clerk, and city manager “is pretty tame.”
“I’m inclined that we put this behind us,” said LeBlanc.
Other councillors expressed a similar view. Councillor John Findura noted Stevens had apologized at council. "I think that going to carry a larger weight than a letter. I think we need to, as I’ve said before, put this behind us. We have to work as a team here and this is definitely not helping us to work as a team… we need to start moving forward and getting back into respecting each other.”
Councillor Shanon Zachidniak noted there were now “two integrity commissioner reports about the same situation but a different perspective. I think it’s fair to treat them both equally.”
She noted council opted for no disciplinary action against Councillor Nelson, after Nelson verbally apologized to council for an error on her part. Zachidniak noted they heard the same from Stevens.
“I think it is my interest to treat these both the same as much as possible,” said Zachidniak, who added “I don’t think any of us including the residents of Regina want to hear us continue to talk about internal conflict, so I think we should move on with the business we were elected to do.“
In the end, council voted 7-1 not to impose sanction on Stevens. The only no vote came from Mayor Sandra Masters. She later told reporters she voted this was to be consistent with her previous vote on the Nelson ethics matter, when she voted in favor of sanctions.
Following the vote, Stevens expressed a desire to put the whole issue behind them.
“I hope we can move on, and frankly that was always my intention,” said Stevens. “We need to work together, you don’t have to like each other. But I think where I do agree with (Nelson) is people around that table have different opinions, but we care deeply about the City. That’s what we’re here to do.”
As for the working relationship with Councillor Nelson going forward, Stevens said he was willing to work with anyone. “What I learned very quickly in this job is that you don’t get elected to hang out with your friends. You get elected because you have constituents who are advancing a particular candidate to city council, you have no choice. I don’t have a problem with that… on my part I’m willing to work with anybody. I’m willing to bury the hatchet, as long as it’s not in my back.”
This was the second ethics complaint against Stevens this year. Last month, council heard a separate Integrity Commissioner report into two ethics breaches by both Councillors Stevens and LeBlanc in relation to their actions in filing a lawsuit against the city manager during the budget process.
In that separate report it was determined Stevens and LeBlanc had breached the Code of Ethics by failing to act in the best interests of the municipality, and failing to build and inspire the public's trust and confidence in local government. It is expected that matter will return to council again in the coming weeks for a final decision on potential sanctions.
