8-time sanctioned Ontario city councillor loses appeal in court, ordered to pay $10,000

Already sanctioned eight times and docked about $80,000 in pay during her tumultuous three-plus years in office, Pickering Councillor Lisa Robinson lost her latest appeal this week, with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruling in favour of the City of Pickering – a decision that will add another $10,000 in legal fees to her ledger.

The ruling marks the third judicial review initiated – and lost – by Robinson, requiring the city’s legal team to defend the findings of the Integrity Commissioner and council’s own decisions.

While Pickering Mayor Kevin Ashe views the decision as a “significant” legal victory, the $10,000 in legal costs Robinson was ordered to pay covers only a portion of the expenses incurred, with the proceedings from her repeated legal challenges costing the city “well over a hundred thousand dollars” in legal costs.

“While I am pleased with this legal victory, which serves as a complete and thorough vindication of the city, members of council and our staff, I sincerely hope we can now move forward with the business of the city,” Ashe said. “Moving ahead constructively is in everyone’s best interest. Our community deserves our full focus on the important work before us, and that is where we intend to direct our collective efforts.”

Pickering Councillor Lisa Robinson

In its ruling, the Superior Court found “no breach” of procedural fairness, determined that the Integrity Commissioner’s findings were reasonable and declared that the city’s obligation to protect staff dignity and maintain public trust outweighed any limit on Robinson’s Charter rights.

Robinson was in court asking a judge to overturn a June 23 council decision to sanction her for a series of allegations made the previous November in one of her ‘Town Hall’ meetings that Integrity Commissioner Jeff Abrams called in his report “flagrantly misleading or categorically untrue.”

Robinson also lost an Ontario Divisional Court decision in May. In that ruling, she not only saw her application dismissed, but she was also ordered to pay the city costs of $30,000.

The embattled councillor has been sanctioned three times since that June council ruling, the latest in October when her pay was slashed 90 days for another violation of the city’s code of conduct, this time for accepting more than $13,000 in donations from a GiftsSendGo crowd sourcing campaign.

The sanction in October was Robinson’s eighth in her single term on the job representing Ward 1 and the second time she has been sanctioned for fundraising in breach of the rules at the city.