Windsor's integrity commissioner has found Ward 3 Councillor Rino Bortolin violated the Code of conduct following statements made last year, but the councillor isn't taking it lying down.
A formal investigation was launched in November 2017 after the ward 3 councillor said, 'there is no money for a $3,000 alley light where that person got beat up and raped last week?" In reality, no one was beaten or raped.
The commissioner is recommending council reprimand Bortolin and that he issue a formal apology.
But Bortolin is asking the report be deferred as he will be asking for a judicial review before the divisional courts.
Bortolin believes the report is flawed and there are errors in procedural fairness and application of the law.
Based on the report, he says councillors will be afraid to speak their minds and it will limit councillor's ability to criticize decisions.
"It would be easier for me to simply apologize and put this behind me," he says. "But the vital issues of democratic decent and meaningful representation touched on this report can not go unchallenged. This report encourages toeing the line and not telling it like it is"
Bortolin has hired a lawyer to proceed with the judicial review. David McNevin says the report goes too far.
"It almost becomes an integrity commissioner is becoming like speech police where he's going to decide what you can criticize and what you can't criticize and that is really problematic from a principles perspective. It stifles democracy."
The issue is on the Windsor City Council agenda for Monday, May 7 and Councillors Bill Marra and Irek Kusmierczyk have indicated they won't be in attendance.