McLean and Carra will be required to attend ethics training with the ethics counselor within 30 days. Carra is also required to attend records management, ethics and social media training with the ethics counselor. Carra has been removed from any chairman position on all boards, committees and commissions he serves on. However, he is still able to actively participate in them.

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The sanctions come after the council returned from a lengthy closed session during Tuesday’s combined council meeting. Details are scarce, but McLean said he was penalized for a photo of himself not wearing a mask at an event inside a restaurant. Story continues below ad McLean said the sanctions set a dangerous precedent because anyone can take a photo out of context. He claims he did not violate public health restrictions for COVID-19 and the photo was taken by someone who “repeatedly attacked” him on Twitter and Facebook. “I was at a table with food and drink in front of me, but you can take a picture of someone without food and drink in front of them,” McLean told reporters at a scrum Tuesday afternoon. Trending Stories

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“Anyone can come after you with a photo and there can be sanctions against you … This is a dangerous precedent.” Carra did not respond to reporters’ questions about his sanctions.

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The bulletins proposed to clarify behavior regarding the use of social media

On Tuesday night, Carra asked the integrity commissioner and ethics counsel if bulletins could be created to clarify the code of conduct around social media use. The question comes after Carra was sanctioned over a social media post. It is unclear when the post was published and what the post said. The proposal caused a variety of reactions and responses from the municipal councilors. McLean disagreed with the idea, saying he doesn’t want municipal government to be able to dictate the use of social media. Story continues below ad

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“The ethics adviser and the integrity commissioner are good people, but I don’t think they should be in charge of social media policy and policing what councilors can do,” McLean said. “We already have a code of conduct to adhere to and this will be another level of policing and censorship that I will disagree with.” The ethics consultant said it’s common for other municipalities to issue interpretive bulletins to explain how the code of ethics applies to social media. However, the bulletins are not binding and will only serve to give the Council some direction. “Once a bulletin is issued, it cannot be changed, but we can issue further bulletins about what was done before or if there has been a change in circumstances,” the ethics adviser said at Tuesday’s meeting. © 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.