MAMOT: Disclosure of wrongdoings
COMMISSIONER FOR MUNICIPAL INTEGRITY AND INVESTIGATIONS: Procedure for handling the disclosure of wrongdoings relating to municipalities and reprisal complaints.
YOU HAVE THE POWER TO ACT IF YOU ARE WITNESS TO A REPREHENSIBLE ACT COMMITTED IN A MUNICIPALITY OR IN A MUNICIPAL ORGANISATION.
To implement the Procedure for processing of disclosure of wrongdoings relating to municipalities and reprisal complaints, the Ministère has instituted the Commissaire à l’intégrité municipale et aux enquêtes (CIME – commissioner for municipal integrity and investigations). This replaces the Bureau du commissaire aux plaintes (Office of the Complaints Commissioner), which was previously responsible for applying the Policy on processing of complaints related to municipalities within Ministère.
This change responds to the amendments made to the Act to facilitate the disclosure of wrongdoings relating to public bodies (AFDWPB), with the goal of making it applicable to municipalities and other municipal bodies. Note that the AFDWPB was adopted further to Recommendation 8 of the Commission of investigation into the Awarding and Management of Public Contracts in the Construction Industry (Charbonneau Commission) related to supporting and protecting whistleblowers.
Complementary to other measures deployed, this entire approach is part of the government vision with the goal of redefining the relations between the Gouvernement du Québec and the municipalities, based on the principles of autonomy and accountability. It is closely related to the MAMOT’s mission of seeing to the sound administration of the municipal system in the interest of the municipalities and their citizens.
THE CIME’s MANDATE
The CIME’s mandate consists of receiving information from any person that could prove that wrongdoings relating to a municipality or another municipal body has been committed or is about to be committed. It also includes processing of complaints about wrongdoing. In this sense, the CIME assumes powers of intervention, with the ability to proceed with the necessary verifications related to the information received.
In the enforcement of the Act to facilitate the disclosure of wrongdoings relating to public bodies, the CIME guarantees the confidentiality of requests for information and of any communication concerning the disclosure of wrongdoing or a reprisal complaint, subject to the special conditions related to investigations about alleged reprisals or threats of reprisals.
The Procedure for processing of disclosure of wrongdoings relating to municipalities and reprisal complaints establishes the CIME’s intervention framework.