Transcona councillor refuses to apologize after report finds he made offensive comments about CAO

Posted on November 14, 2024 by Peggy

A Winnipeg city councillor says he will not publicly apologize for his behaviour toward a former civil servant, after an integrity commissioner’s investigation found he breached the city’s code of conduct with offensive comments about the city’s former CAO.

An investigative report by Jamie Pytel of Edmonton-based Kingsgate Legal, who is the City of Edmonton’s integrity commissioner, found Coun. Russ Wyatt (Transcona) breached the City of Winnipeg’s code of conduct on several points with his comments about then chief administrative officer Michael Jack and his staff that were “objectively offensive.”

But Wyatt, who was previously on city council from 2002 until 2018 before being elected again in 2022, says he is “very disappointed” by the report’s findings and has no intention of apologizing.

“I am not going to apologize. No way. I did nothing wrong,” he told CBC News on Thursday. “I basically spoke to the public about the fact that we need to have better accountability and transparency at city hall.”

Jack, who resigned from his city post in June and was named the provincial deputy minister of business, mining, trade and job creation on Thursday, made a formal complaint against Wyatt in August 2023.

Because Winnipeg’s integrity commissioner had a conflict of interest, the complaint was referred to Edmonton’s Pytel, her report says.

Jack alleged he was “publicly harassed through the publication of an interview given by [Wyatt] to the Winnipeg media,” the report states.

A man is pictured looking forwards. — Michael Jack, a former CAO with the City of Winnipeg, alleged Coun. Russ Wyatt ‘publicly harassed’ him through comments made in an August 2023 CBC interview. (Radio-Canada)

Wyatt called for Jack’s firing in an August 2023 CBC article, after a multimillion-dollar court judgment that went against the city.

“We need a change. We need a new CAO and we need to start removing some of some of the dead wood that exists in senior management,” Wyatt said at the time.

Pytel’s report, which was obtained by CBC, acknowledged that Wyatt was entitled to hold his opinions, but said his statements in the article breached the city’s code of conduct.

The comments “personally attacked” Jack and “threatened his employment,” the report says, and were “offensive, disrespectful, threatening and amount to harassment.”

Pytel also wrote that the reference to “dead wood” was “disrespectful, objectively offensive” and “questioned [Jack’s] professional capacities.”

Wyatt refutes the report’s findings, and says there’s a different standard for elected officials as compared to senior administration.

“At no point was there any harassment or coercion on my part,” he said.

“It’s not an issue of not eating crow. I have eaten crow in the past and I’m sure I will in the future,” Wyatt said, but he maintains he did nothing wrong in this case.

“I stood up for what I believe the public expects of our elected officials,” he said.

“If I apologize, that basically means that every councillor today and in the future is going to have to look over their shoulder wondering, ‘Can I say this? Can I say that?'”

The report says it’s up to council to decide what sanctions, if any, will be imposed on Wyatt for breaching the code of conduct, but recommends he publicly apologize prior to the next scheduled council meeting.

If he fails to do so, Wyatt would be publicly reprimanded, the report says.

CBC contacted Jack but he declined to comment.