Inquiry into Yellowknife's municipal enforcement division begins

An inquiry into allegations of workplace misconduct by Yellowknife's municipal enforcement division has begun.

The inquiry is being overseen by a Vancouver lawyer with the firm Miller Thomson LLP. It was sparked by media reports based on interviews with former employees, who alleged inappropriate behaviour bycity municipal enforcement managerDoug Gillard.

The employees claimed Gillardbullied and harassed them, made inappropriate sexual comments about a female city employee, and used city security cameras to eye women he found attractive.

The last allegation isn't mentioned in the inquiry's terms of reference, but Deputy Mayor Adrian Bell told CBC in an email that a sentence was removed from the document that would have mentioned the allegations of camera misuse.

According to Bell, city administration will correct this mistake with Miller Thomson this week.

The lawyer overseeing the inquirywill report to council and the city's senior administrative officer with outcomes and recommendations, according to the city's website.

"The City of Yellowknife will share the information coming out of the official inquiry in accordance with applicable legislation."

The terms of reference say the goal of the inquiry is to see if appropriate actions were taken to address the allegations in 2014, and to see if any improvements can be made to workplace policies to avoid misconduct in the future.

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No budget

How much the inquiry will cost is still unknown.

At a municipal servicescommittee meeting Monday, Coun. Shawna Morgan raised concerns about the inquiry's lack of a known budget.

"I am certainly not prepared to give a blank cheque to whomever's going to do this inquiry to do as much as they want or can," Morgan said.

"I think it's important that we actually set a limit on how much we're prepared to spend on this inquiry."

The city hopes the inquiry will be completed within six weeks, according to the terms of reference.

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