Great news, folks! Councillor Kissel, Hanson and I received the judge’s ruling on our court case and he has ruled in our favour. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to our lawyers, Michael B. Niven Q.C. and Michael Custer of Carscallen LLP, and to Justice J.T. Eamon, of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench, who we felt did a remarkable job on a complicated matter. The removal of all of our sanctions was the best outcome we could have hoped for. We were pleased to have our positions vindicated. While there were multiple reasons underlying the Court’s decision to set aside the sanctions, two key reasons were given. The first was that there was a violation of our right to procedural fairness due to Council’s failure to consider the possibility of bias from the County’s Investigator. The second was that, in any event, the majority of the sanctions were both unreasonable and disproportionate. We look forward to having our status fully reinstated and being able to properly represent our constituents. We hope that everyone on Rocky View Council can put this behind them and move forward with a more productive and positive work environment. Thank you so much for your continued support, it has been, and remains, unbelievably appreciated.
If you are interested in reading the ruling, please click on the following link: https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/doc/2020/2020abqb406/2020abqb406.html