Sarnia's integrity commissioner urged councillors to respect the rules and roles between council and administration Monday morning.
During a special training session, Paul Watson reviewed the council and employee relations policy.
He said many municipal employees have their own codes of conduct and rules to follow to maintain their professional designations.
"We have lawyers and paralegals on staff, they answer to the Law Society of Ontario, you have accountants, they answer to the CPA Ontario, the engineers are governed by the Association of Engineers of Ontario," said Watson.
He said employees must be allowed to do their jobs independently and without the influence of council.
"No member of council is entitled to expect any special treatment from administration or expect access to information not available to all members of council."
Watson answered questions covering everything from confidentiality to behaviour.
"If any member of council, or any citizen of Sarnia, feels that there has been a breach under the code of conduct, then there's a right to bring forward the complaint to the integrity commissioner. The integrity commissioner will review it and decide if there are grounds for an investigation and will take it from there. Ultimately, if it's investigated, there would be a report that would come back to council."
Watson said he does not have the authority to investigate unless he receives a complaint. And while he didn't discuss current investigations, at the beginning of the meeting broadcast live on ZOOM, Watson did share a screen showing the names of some Sarnia complainants. The action appeared to be unintentional.
It's expected an edited video of the meeting will be made public later on.
