Peterborough City Council received four reports from Peterborough’s Integrity Commissioner Guy Giorno for information during their January 12th general committee meeting, including Giorno’s rulings on several accusations leveraged at Mayor Jeff Leal for his use of the N-word in a Trent lecture.

Complainants in the Leal case include the Afrocentric Awareness Network of Peterborough (AANP) and the Trent Central Student Association (TCSA), whose members were in attendance during the January 12th meeting. In their complaint to Giorno, the AANP allege that Leal’s use of the N-word in an ADMN-2010H guest lecture last year “[undermined] safe spaces for Black children and adults, weakening race relations in the community.”

Giorno concluded in his report that the Mayor’s use of the N-word, while “universally agreed to be unacceptable,” did not comprise any violation of the City Council Code of Conduct, on the basis that his use of the slur was a one-off instance and therefore unfit for the legal definition of harassment used in Canada and that his words did not concern any single “real, identifiable individual.”

Prior to the beginning of the meeting, the Community Race Relations Committee (CRRC) of Peterborough as well as the AANP put out a call for members to attend the meeting and bear witness to its proceedings, leading to a full gallery.

Like many who heeded the CRRC and AANP’s calls, Town Ward Councillor Alex Bierk seemed at odds with Giorno’s findings at the January 12th meeting, though he lauded the commissioner’s statement that the slur is “unacceptable.”

“The Integrity Commissioner’s report is clear. The N-word is odious, vile and dehumanizing,” said Bierk, opening council discussions on the report. “Some have sought to minimize this incident by focusing on context and intent. Some have used their positions to justify and defend this behaviour. The harm caused by this word does not depend on context. It does not depend on whether it was quoted or directed at someone. The harm is real. It is documented in the report, and it has been felt deeply by members of our community.”

“This conversation must be centred around the people that were harmed,” Bierk noted. “It must be centred on the safety and dignity of our Black and racialized community members, and it must be centred on our choices as elected officials.”

Though Bierk thanked the work of the complainants in this case, neither the representatives from the TCSA and CRRC nor the AANP and Trent African Carribean Student Union (TACSU) in attendance were permitted to speak during the meeting, as general committee meetings do not permit members of the public delegate to council.

At the end of his comments, Bierk moved a series of three amendments to the motion to recommend Giorno’s report. The first two amendments implemented calls from the TCSA included alongside their complaints to Giorno, for the City’s Official Plan to be amended to include race relations and anti-racism as strategic priorities and for all councillors and senior City staff (later changed to all City staff) to receive diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training, with an implementation plan and timeline to come before council in 90 days. The third amendment followed a recommendation from Giorno himself for the Code of Conduct to be amended to prohibit the use of all racial slurs regardless of context.

Speaking on the amendment, Town Wardmate Councillor Joy Lachica said she felt “shocked and dismayed” at the outcome of Giorno’s investigation.

“If a comment is inappropriate and merits a recommendation that such a slur be spelled out as forbidden on a Council Code of Conduct, how could that use of a slur not meet the threshold?” She asked.

Lachica also expressed her shock at Leal’s statement to Giorno during the latter’s investigation into the ADMN 2010H incident that he did not know using the N-word was considered offensive regardless of context.

“I was struck by the power of the phrase, ‘not being aware.’ And it's flexed as a free pass of sorts, not being aware that it is unacceptable to quote the word directly is unacceptable. Not being aware is indicative of a need for education, as the motion recommends,” said Lachica.

Ashburnham Ward Councillor Keith Riel lauded the educational measures proposed by Bierk, as well as Lachica’s comments on the matter.

“Here is the youngest serving councillor, talking to me as one of the longest serving councillors and the oldest councillor on this council, educating me that using the N-word or racial slurs [is] not acceptable,” Riel said. “So you can teach an old dog new tricks, and I welcome this kind of education that we all need.”

Bierk’s motion was carried unanimously, followed by another unanimous vote to receive Giorno’s report as amended.

In an interview with Arthur after the fact, TCSA Vice President Campaigns & Equity and TACSU President Mickayla Simpson-Carty expressed mixed feelings about the outcome of the meeting.

“I wish that they had come to the decision [to] have the mayor resign,” said Simpson-Carty, “but I'm very glad that they were able to accept the recommendations that we had placed forward.”

“It felt as if it was a glossed-over situation, when in reality, the mayor using that word was extremely harmful,” she told Arthur.

“Our ancestors heard that word right before they died, and I think that that is something that is important and should have been acknowledged, and the mayor should have further apologized.”

With files from Jonny Milton.