00:00:00.000We're joined now by Pickering City Councilor Lisa Robinson and we spoke with Councilor Robinson at the end of 2023 after she had been handed a 60-day pay suspension after introducing three motions, one regarding the flying of the transgender flag, another regarding protecting girls' bathrooms at city facilities.
00:00:25.000We're going to get into some of that, Councilor. Thank you for joining us, but I understand after watching this very bizarre video from the mayor that you are now under fire for another pay suspension. What's going on here?
00:00:39.200Yes, good morning and thank you for having me again. I am under fire for another pay suspension. I actually just got sanctioned on December the 16th.
00:00:48.540And this time for a comment that I made, if you want me to tell you what that is, is because I said, if I was to become mayor, I would use a strong mayor powers for good.
00:01:00.380I would get rid of the city solicitor, the CAO and a few of the directors.
00:01:05.720I would tear down city hall and build it back up from the bottom and give it back to the people.
00:01:11.300So I lost a three months pay for that.
00:01:16.700Okay. So let me ask you, because I came across this video, an official city of Pickering video where the mayor is sitting, sitting at his desk and looking very serious.
00:01:27.140And there's, I think there's some ominous music playing in the background, Councilor, where he begins to explain how dangerous you are to Council.
00:01:35.400How, how, how your comments, the comments of random social media accounts, and your appearances on other podcasts has created a situation at Council that I guess the mayor thinks is, is unacceptable.
00:01:48.680What, what, how is this taking place where you are being accused of basically, of hate speech for your appearances on podcasts?
00:02:00.120Are Councilors not allowed to speak to the media anymore?
00:02:02.380Well, apparently only this councillor is not allowed to, to speak to the media that they feel is unfavorable.
00:02:10.780But the thing is, is, you know, you got to remember is that our mayor calls everybody who says anything negative towards him or a council, he calls them alt-rights.
00:02:20.780Every single one of them, they could be alt-right, they could just be regular citizens, they could be just plain old conservatives, just as myself, but he's now taking that, that stand that everybody who disagrees with him or council is now alt-right.
00:02:38.720And I mean, there's a lot of people that disagree, disagree with them because of all the draconian measures that they have put in place, even since the last time you and I spoke.
00:02:48.140And you are not the only councillor to be facing these consistent threats of pay suspensions for your social media posts, your use of, of your own social media platforms, and for speaking up on behalf of your constituents.
00:03:03.800I understand that the integrity commissioner, which is some sort of external integrity commission group, has been going after another councillor in London who we spoke to last year, at the end of last year, councillor Susan Stevenson.
00:03:20.420I view it as an integrity commissioner for higher practice that are based, these, these people are basically coming in and silencing councillors' rights to free speech.
00:03:37.000This is a very dangerous, slippery slope that we have entered into with these integrity commissioners.
00:03:42.260And they only came in for us around 2017.
00:03:46.200But principles integrity, which is who we use, it also seems to be the same integrity commissioner that the councillor Stevenson in London also uses, with also approximately another 60 municipalities.
00:04:00.660So, with that, they are basically going around and silencing anybody who is speaking against what is happening at their city councils and who are, you know, uncovering or, you know, talking about, you know, the corruption that we're seeing or anything else like that.
00:04:20.760They're trying to silence us so the best way that they can do it, the only way they can do it at this time, is through the Municipal Act, which allows them to suspend our pay up to three months.
00:04:31.780But that's only supposed to be for egregious matters, which, as you can see, none of this really is.
00:04:37.580And the thing about that is when I was watching your show and I saw that you had councillor Stevenson on it, my name came up.
00:04:46.400And I found that very, very odd that, you know, here we are now.
00:04:51.260We have our principal's integrity, our own integrity commissioner, who is copying and pasting, which is like a template that they're using for other councils because it had my name on it when it should have had her name on it.
00:05:05.300Yeah, so you're basically, you quite literally are being made an example out of and used as a way to silence other councillors.
00:05:14.760I understand that the mayor, after that bizarre video that he posted out, he has since gone even further to try to silence you.
00:05:23.940He's trying to take away your internet bills and that sort of thing?
00:05:29.080Yes, that's exactly what they're doing.
00:05:30.760After they censored me on the 16th, first of all, they got an email from the CAO, Marissa Carpino, and she said that she was going to eliminate access to my office at City Hall if I kept on posting videos from there.
00:05:49.860And then she also told me that she was going to remove access from me from holding my town hall meetings using my city budget for any of my town halls.
00:06:02.740So now I can't even access, like, you know, the recreation centre and have a meeting place for my constituents and I to meet.
00:06:09.360But since then, just yesterday, yes, an email came out across to all of us, all of us being the rest of the councillors, saying that they want to change our compensation policy
00:06:22.720and remove any member who is under suspension of their budgets for use for their cell phones, for their internet services, for their security systems.
00:06:38.380They also want to take away our budget for our car allowance.
00:06:43.760So, in fact, he is now just targeting me directly.
00:06:47.860Well, he's always been targeting me directly, but now he's really honing in and trying to remove all of this stuff from me, even though he sits there and he speaks about, you know, the safety of us councillors.
00:06:59.880And now he wants to remove my internet and my security system from my home.
00:07:05.280Are they going to try to remove you entirely from office, regardless of if that's democratic or even legal?
00:07:12.580Well, they're trying to push me out right now.
00:07:14.660They think that if they take everything away from me, I'm going to stop speaking the truth.
00:07:18.580I'm going to stop speaking up for the people.
00:07:21.320And the only way they can do that right now is if they change the Municipal Act.
00:07:26.500Now, Pickering City Council and the mayor have been very, very big contributors, lobbyists to the provincial government,
00:07:34.660asking them to change the Municipal Act, which will allow them to remove an elected official.
00:07:40.340And not only that, it will also stop that elected official from running into subsequent election.
00:07:48.060So basically, they want a means to control everything, to have power over everything and remove an elected official who doesn't have the same views as them,
00:08:00.180who might have opposing views, who's not just a yes-notter.
00:08:03.400They will now be able to have that person removed and subsequently, you know, tampering with elections,
00:08:10.400because that will become tampering fraud if the people cannot vote in who they want them to represent them.
00:08:17.360And again, what's the point of a city council if the mayor or even perhaps bureaucrats that aren't even known to the voters are able to just decide,
00:08:27.200well, we don't actually like the politics of this one councillor that was elected by the people, so we're going to just remove her from office?
00:08:34.820What's even the point of municipal politics in the first place?
00:08:38.060Is the mayor trying to basically anoint himself the king of Pickering?
00:08:41.800Well, he's pretty much controlling his own little kingdom now.
00:08:46.480You know, he makes comments like, you know, about outsiders and, you know, people that live in Durham,
00:08:53.340if they come into Pickering or if they say that they support me and if they don't live in Pickering,
00:08:57.480he's like, you know, now ousting them as outsiders.
00:09:01.100And even though he sits on the Durham region board, right, but yet he talks about everybody throughout Durham,
00:09:11.540if they're not right from Pickering, they're called outsiders.
00:09:16.060So, yes, he is treating it like his own little, being a king of his own kingdom.
00:09:21.300Quite obviously he has an inflated sense of self, obviously, and outrageous ego.
00:09:27.440And I find it interesting that this mayor, Kevin Nash, he previously ran for the Conservative Provincial nomination
00:09:34.300back, I believe, in the early 2000s, hardly acting like a Conservative.
00:09:39.380You know, the thing that I think about when I hear these stories of city councillors being under attack
00:09:44.560for doing their jobs, for speaking up on behalf of their constituents,
00:09:48.560and I said this to Councillor Stevenson in London,
00:09:51.440you know, it doesn't even matter if you agree with what you have said, Councillor Robinson.
00:09:56.120It doesn't really matter if the people think, you know, agree with you.
00:10:00.560It matters that you should have the right to say it,
00:10:03.740and that you are given the responsibility to speak up,
00:10:06.420and if you are voted in, then you are given that right.
00:10:09.620And, you know, do you feel like left-wing councillors ever think about what would happen