'It is a mess': Sarnia, Ont. mayor considers next steps after councillor’s outburst leads to early end for council meeting

The mayor of Sarnia is considering what steps to take next after a city councillor’s outburst led to the abrupt ending of a city council meeting Monday, with work left undone.

It came when council was hearing a delegation on a motion in which Greg McConkey, a member of the City of Sarnia Environmental Advisory Committee, had completed a presentation on the impacts of the federal government’s carbon tax, which broadly endorsed the measure.

Coun. Bill Dennis used the opportunity to speak out against the carbon tax, going after the citizen speaker and Mayor Mike Bradley in the process. 

“Are you that desperate to protect your buddy in Ottawa?” Dennis questioned. “Are you that desperate to protect your friend? The worst prime minister in the history of Canada?”

“Please calm down,” said Bradley, as he tried to restore decorum. “The speaker has a right to answer questions. He came here and made a presentation.”

Dennis continued, “What the heck would you have done? You washed out in real estate in the 80s.”

“Let him go on, the public needs to see the real Bill Dennis,” said Bradley.

“The real Bill Dennis gave up a half a million dollar career in real estate to help save this city,” Dennis fired back.

Sarnia City Coun. Bill Dennis speaks to CTV News London on Oct. 17, 2023. (Bryan Bicknell/CTV News London) The meeting was adjourned early.

A day after the incident, Bradley was still shaken by the experience, and said, “The thing that bothered me the most was the personal attacks — on me, on the citizens who were coming to present to council. They were being questered and mocked. That is simply unacceptable.”

Bradley said so far there has been no apology from Dennis.

Dennis meanwhile told CTV News London that’s a non-starter.

“I will not apologize,” he said. “If I ruffle some feathers, so be it. I’m there to represent the people I’m not there to make friends or to get along and go with the flow. I don’t know the secret handshake, nor do I want to know it.”

Municipal governance expert Gord Hume said council or a member of the public has the option to file a formal complaint with the city’s integrity commissioner.

“Council may want the integrity commissioner to investigate this, do a report, and there could be sanctions that would come down from that,” he said.

(CTV News file image)

Hume added that such incidents erode both public trust, and trust within city council itself.

“Communities tend not to like city councils imploding like this, and having these kinds of problems,” explained Hume. “The second thing is, how will the other council members react? Will they trust this particular individual again? How will the mayor respond? How will he keep control of the council? It is a mess.”

Hume said the incident is likely to lead to tension on council for the remainder of the term. In the meantime, Dennis is doubling down on his comments.

“I do what I want. I say what I want, and no-one’s going to cancel me. No-one’s going to stop me saying what I want to say,” he said.

“My job is to get council through this, get the public supportive of the city again, and to have respect to the council chamber,” added Bradley. 

— With files from CTV News London's Gerry Dewan