CUPE Files Complaint Against Councillor

A Saint John councillor is facing another code of conduct complaint, this time by a CUPE representative.

Mike Davidson outlined the complaint against David Merrithew during a news conference Wednesday.

He said the complaint follows a public presentation he made to members of city council on Jan. 13.

Davidson alleges Merrithew “aggressively accused” him of trying to “mislead the public” with the city’s consolidated financial statements.

“The comments by the chair of the finance committee are totally inappropriate, condescending, offensive, insulting and derogatory,” said Davidson.

During his presentation, Davidson referenced numbers in the statements which showed the city had an accumulated surplus of $698 million as of the end of 2018.

He also pointed to numbers which show the city had a surplus of more than $22 million in 2018.

But city staff later clarified the accumulated surplus does not represent funds which are currently available to be spent by council and is in no way related to the city’s structural deficit.

“We certainly did not mean to oversimplify the issues and certainly did not lie,” said Davidson.

“Rather, CUPE was directing council’s attention to the consolidated results and perhaps, just perhaps, council might look to these statements for possible long-term solutions to the challenges that lie ahead.”

Davidson said it is not responsible for council to balance the city’s budget on the backs of residents and businesses.

Instead, the union leader said council should look at “everything” it owns and controls, such as Saint John Energy, and at having heavy industry properly assessed.

Davidson demanded an apology from Merrithew and for him to be given an “educational seminar presentation” by the accounting firm which prepared the consolidated financial statements.

Councillor Stands By Comments

Meantime, Merrithew is standing by the comments he made during the January council meeting.

The councillor said he was simply trying to protect Saint John citizens from “untruths” the union was telling.

“They tried to say we had $600-million-plus in surplus on a shelf someplace in City Hall and we would get $15 million and $20 million annual surpluses that you could spend,” said Merrithew.

“What was I supposed to do, have them try to pull the wool over the eyes of our citizens? No. I think I did my job.”

Merrithew said city staff tried to explain the consolidated financial statements to Davidson and other union members several times during the meeting.

“I feel sorry for their membership if [the leadership is] that incompetent they couldn’t realize that in the first place,” he said.

Merrithew also questioned if the province would have given the city a $22.8-million bailout package over three years if the city had an annual surplus.

It is the second time Merrithew has faced a code of conduct complaint since it was adopted by council in July.

The Saint John Police Association filed a complaint after Merrithew called first responders “greedy” in a newspaper article. Council chose to receive and file the complaint.