{"id":2212,"date":"2013-01-23T20:26:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-23T20:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rf.podcastfixit.com\/index.php\/2013\/01\/23\/laval-council-fires-ombudsman\/"},"modified":"2015-06-01T19:41:57","modified_gmt":"2015-06-01T19:41:57","slug":"laval-council-fires-ombudsman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newscoverage.org\/index.php\/2013\/01\/23\/laval-council-fires-ombudsman\/","title":{"rendered":"Laval council fires ombudsman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayor wants to reorganize office of last resort for citizens’ complaints<\/i><\/b>
\nBy Robert Frank<\/b>
\nwww.thesuburban.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\nDiane Lemelin is the latest person to head out the revolving door at the head of Laval’s ombudsman service.<\/p>\n

City council voted 15-three to relieve the 51-year-old corporate lawyer of her duties at its meeting, Jan. 14, less than three months after it appointed her to the office. The dissenting councillors were Denis Robillard, Jacques St. Jean and Yvon Martineau.<\/p>\n

Lemelin was the third person to hold the newly created post during the past year.<\/p>\n

The first, Carole Leduc, was not qualified as a member of the Quebec Bar, and resigned on April 30, 2012. In mid-July, lawyer Julie Cuddihy took on the duties of ombudsman, but left office a few weeks later. On Oct. 15, 2012, Lemelin was appointed to succeed her.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to change the structure of the ombudsman’s office,\u201d Laval mayor Alexandre Duplessis told The Suburban <\/i>in an interview, Jan. 17.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was the first person to advocate [introducing] this service,\u201d he attested, \u201cbut we have to find another way to go about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe current system is a hybrid, which employs a secretary-general as well as a few [volunteer] commissioners to assess requests from citizens,\u201d Duplessis explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis kind of structure is not very good, so we want to develop an [ombudsman] organization more like Montreal’s, and have only one person who responds to all requests from A-to-Z and conducts investigations, in order to better serve our citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mayor said that a successor to Lemelin has not yet been identified. He added that he plans to meet the president of the Laval’s ombudsman office, Jos\u00e9e Cailloux, this week \u201cto discuss how we can improve this kind of service.\u201d<\/p>\n

A senior official in city hall told The Suburban<\/i> that tensions quickly arose after top municipal civil servants attempted to compromise the ombudsman’s independence by placing the office under the authority of Ga\u00e9tan Turbide, Laval’s top civil servant.<\/p>\n

The Suburban<\/i> has obtained a copy of a Jan. 7 interim report, which claims that the city administration and the mayor \u201csystematically violated\u201d the provisions of the Laval bylaw that created the ombudsman’s office.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe administration and the mayor’s office interfered,\u201d it contended. \u201cUntil Nov. 27, the ombudsman’s office did not have access to its own voicemail box or control over incoming calls,\u201d declared the report. \u201cBesides being among the most drastic forms of interference, the situation violated the very principle of independence and confidentiality of ombudsman office files.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report claimed that the city planning department ignored a wide range of Lemelin’s requests for information. It also indicated that the city’s latest budget cut the ombudsman’s budget by 46 percent to $108,000, down from $200,000 the year before.<\/p>\n

The report underscored that doing this sort of job is a full-time proposition in cities like Montreal, Quebec City, Gatineau and Longueil, but that Lemelin was only paid two days a week, and contributed the rest of her time \u201con a volunteer basis\u201d, processing and investigating citizens’ complaints without the benefit of support staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe concept of an independent ombudsman, which is widely recognized throughout Quebec, ought to be unambiguously recognized [in Quebec law] to guarantee the free exercise of ombudsman powers in perpetuity,\u201d the report continued. \u201cThis recommendation will ultimately be directed to the Quebec government.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/b><\/p>\n

\nSt. Francois councilor Jacques St. Jean (left) and Ste. Rose councilor Denis Robillard (right) confer with citizens during a break in Laval city council meeting, Jan. 14. Together with St. Bruno councilor Yvon Martineau, they opposed a vote to fire top ombudsman office official Diane Lemelin, minutes earlier.<\/b><\/b><\/div>\n


\n<\/b><\/p>\n

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Mayor wants to reorganize office of last resort for citizens’ complaints By Robert Frank www.thesuburban.com Diane Lemelin is the latest person to head out the revolving door at the head of Laval’s ombudsman service. City council voted 15-three to relieve the 51-year-old corporate lawyer of her duties at its meeting, Jan. 14, less than three<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nLaval council fires ombudsman - Newscoverage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/newscoverage.org\/index.php\/2013\/01\/23\/laval-council-fires-ombudsman\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Laval council fires ombudsman - Newscoverage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mayor wants to reorganize office of last resort for citizens’ complaints By Robert Frank www.thesuburban.com Diane Lemelin is the latest person to head out the revolving door at the head of Laval’s ombudsman service. 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