City politicians appoint mayor's campaign boss and Liberal staffer to police board
CBC
City politicians have appointed the mayor's campaign manager and current Liberal staffer Ryan Gauss to the London Police Services Board, a spot vacated by lawyer Susan Toth, who called for the spot to be filled by a diverse candidate when she stepped down in January.
Gauss works for London North Centre Liberal MP Peter Fragiskatos and ran Mayor Josh Morgan's campaign in the most recent municipal election.
Gauss was one of 54 candidates who applied to sit on the police board, which provides direction and oversight into police operations. The current board is in the midst of selecting a new police chief. It has one diverse member, Ali Chahbar, a lawyer.
In the first round of voting at Tuesdays' committee meeting, three candidates got votes from city councillors: Gauss, Zeba Hashmi, and Joseph Wabegijig.
Hashmi is a community worker who ran as a Liberal candidate in the recent provincial election and sits on several boards in the city. Wabegijig is the executive director of Atlohsa Family Healing Services and sits on the Wikwemikong Tribal Police Services Board.
In the second round of voting, Gauss got seven votes, Wabegijig got six and Hashmi got one (from Mayor Morgan).
In the last round of voting, Morgan switched his vote: Gauss got eight votes and Wabegijig got six.
When she resigned from the police services board Toth, a human rights and labour lawyer, called for council to make sure her replacement was Black, Indigenous or a person of colour.
"There is an onus on city council to say, 'What can we do to attract people to that position? How can we actively seek those voices rather than take the passive back seat and go, well, you know, whoever applies applies and we'll choose from those people,'" Toth told CBC News at the time.
"Even though I'm a person of colour, I don't speak with the voice of somebody who has the lived experience of being a Black woman, for example, or an Indigenous person. It's really critical to have that."
The appointment still has to be officially approved by full council, however the committee that made the decision was comprised of all councillors.
More to come
Thirty-five summers ago, the late Brian Mulroney opened the world conference on a changing atmosphere in Toronto. Its participants gathered there to discuss the existing threats of acid rain and ozone depletion. It was also one of the first major international conferences organized to discuss the emerging threat of global warming.