By Roy L Hales<\/p>\n
Noba Anderson vs the SRD\u00a0<\/a>was not heard last week. Though the lawsuit was scheduled for the assize week starting Nov. 23, the courts are dealing with such a heavy backlog of cases that it now seems possible the hearing will not take place until January, 2021.<\/p>\n The origins of this suit go back to a\u00a0legal petition\u00a0<\/a>(the \u2018Disqualification petition\u2019) that fourteen Cortes residents filed against\u00a0Regional Director Anderson<\/a>\u00a0for an alleged conflict of interest in the manner that she carried out some of her duties. When the case reached court, the\u00a0lawyers from both sides made a joint submission stating<\/a>, \u201cThere is no basis for the declarations sought by the petitioners\u201d and director Anderson \u201cdid not accept a gift contrary to section 105 of the Community Charter.\u201d<\/p>\n The\u00a0current lawsuit, Noba Anderson vs the SRD, <\/a>arose\u00a0because the\u00a0Strathcona Regional District<\/a> subsequently refused to pay Anderson\u2019s legal costs.<\/p>\n Last month, the SRD\u2019s lawyer<\/a>,\u00a0James H Goulden<\/a>, filed a response.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Disqualification Petition is not a \u2018claim, action or prosecution\u2019 and was brought against Director Anderson in respect of the alleged receipt of gifts that were not in connection with the exercise of her powers or the intended exercise of her powers or, the performance, or intended performance of her duties or functions. The SRD is therefore not required to indemnify Director Anderson for the legal costs incurred,\" Goulden wrote.<\/p>\n The SRD Board also censured Anderson for showing confidential documents to her lawyer, while seeking his legal advice.<\/p>\n According to the SRD\u2019s Code of Conduct Bylaw, \u201cinformation discussed or disclosed at closed meeting or the board\u201d or marked as confidential \u201cmust not be disclosed or released to anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n The most recent development in this case is another SRD\u2019s response,\u00a0filed by Goulden on Nov 16<\/a>.<\/p>\n Cortes Island Regional Director Noba Anderson demanded that she be given access to records of the closed board meetings in which the SRD made their decisions.<\/p>\n Goulden acknowledged that, after her lawyer was given access to confidential information, \u201cDirector Anderson has not been provided with copies of closed reports to the Board (\u201cClosed Reports\u201d) respecting matters that relate to Director Anderson and to which Director Anderson may be in a conflict of interest with the Board.\u201d<\/p>\n \"The SRD has no obligation to provide Director Anderson with copies of the Closed Reports relating to matters in respect of which Director Anderson may be in conflict with the SRD. Director Anderson has demonstrated that she will pass that information on to her personal legal counsel and the SRD does not agree that that is an acceptable use of its privileged and confidential information \u2026 The SRD\u2019s solicitor-client privileged information belongs to the SRD and a single Board member has no authority to waive that privilege,\" he added.<\/p>\n Redacted copies of some written materials have been given to the court.<\/p>\n While meetings are recorded, staff explained this is to help prepare the minutes and the recordings for the meetings of Nov. 7, 2018, April 10, May. 8 and May. 22 no longer exist.<\/p>\n \u201cThe audio recordings of the Board\u2019s meetings on July 24, 2019 and September 11, 2019; and the partial recording of the Board\u2019s closed meeting on October 24, 2019, ought not to be produced \u2026 There are no exceptional circumstances to warrant production of the recordings. Director Anderson has not established that such evidence is relevant and necessary,\" Goulden argued.<\/p>\n By Roy L Hales Noba Anderson vs the SRD\u00a0was not heard last week. Though the lawsuit was scheduled for the assize week starting Nov. 23, the courts are dealing with such a heavy backlog of cases that it now seems possible the hearing will not take place until January, 2021. Origins of the dispute The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":23948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3265],"tags":[314,3636,1632,1508],"radio":[252],"origine":[280,266,231],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23946"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23946"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=23946"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=23946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Origins of the dispute<\/h2>\n
Latest developments<\/h2>\n
Links of Interest<\/h2>\n
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