Community First New Westminster is pleased that the City’s Ethics Commissioner, in response to a complaint filed by New Westminster Progressive Councillors Fontaine and Minhas, has concluded that Mayor Patrick Johnstone acted in good faith when he attended an international summit on climate change in Dubai last November. While the report found a formal breach of section 105 of the Community Charter, it concluded that the “breach… was occasioned out of inadvertence” and that the Mayor was “motivated … to further the City’s goals with respect to climate change.”

The report found that the costs of Mayor Johnstone’s attendance at the COP 28 Climate Action Conference were part of a normal social obligation of his office, but that the hotel, airfare and meal costs paid by the sponsor organization were not. The Ethics Commissioner concluded that the Mayor acted in good faith and proactively disclosed details of the trip to the City’s Corporate Officer, and that there was no reason for the Mayor to “doubt the soundness of the advice that he received.”

Read the summary report here, and the full version here. 

The Ethics Commissioner recommended that Mayor Johnstone receive further training regarding section 105 of the Community Charter and he has already accepted the Commissioner’s recommendation. In fact, well before the report was issued, Community First councillors voted in favour of providing training regarding section 105 of the Community Charter to all members of Council in a motion passed unanimously on January 22, 2024.

“The transparency with which this complaint was investigated is exactly why Community First supported the creation of an independent Ethics Commissioner,” said Community First New Westminster Vice-Chair James Richardson.

“The City was invited on this trip in recognition of our leadership fighting climate change, and councillors Fontaine and Minhas have a problem with that,” said Richardson. "We are proud of the work that our Mayor and Council are doing to promote local and global solutions to climate change, and we will continue that work despite the so-called New West Progressives ongoing efforts to derail that agenda.”

Read Johnstone's official response here.  

For comment, email [email protected]