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A BC mayor took his dispute to a judge to argue he was unjustly censured by his colleagues, and the judge sided with him.

He filed for a judicial review after fellow councillors voted to cut the mayor's travel expenses and remove him from both internal committees and outside organizations where he represented the city.

If you thought this was the mayor of Kamloops, you'd be wrong.

Other BC municipalities have seen council chamber clashes between elected officials in recent years.

A recent BC Supreme Court ruling saw Quesnel's mayor take the win after he was sanctioned over a controversial book.

Justice William Veenstra quashed council's decision nearly a year later, finding council was unfair in its punishment for Mayor Ron Paull's failure to show leadership.

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The controversy started, not due to Paull's actions, but his wife's who read a book that questioned the legitimacy of claims that Indian residential schools have unmarked graves of former students. She went on to recommend the book, Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools), to others in the community, including the parent of another city councillor, according to the March 3 decision.

The mayor was denounced by First Nations leaders in the region in the weeks that followed, but his own role in the controversy is murky. The only substantive accusation against Paull, claiming he recommended the book to Cariboo Regional District board members, was denied and never proven.

Once Quesnel councillors debated how to censure the mayor in April 2024, whether or not Paull recommended the book didn't matter anymore.

"This is no longer about the book," councillor Laurey-Anne Roodenburg said at the time. "It's about leadership and what hasn't transpired as a leader."

Paull argued to the court it was a "last-minute change of course that was highly unfair."

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Veenstra sided with him because council was procedurally unfair on three counts: failing to give enough notice, voting on alleged misconduct different from those alleged in a staff report and basing the decision on a staff report that was ambiguous and confusing at best.

In multiple council meetings, the matter was dealt with publicly as the City was under pressure to preserve relationships with First Nations in the region.

The decision sets out guidelines for such council decisions, based in provincial legislation and previous case law.

Whether or not the ruling could have any bearing on the seemingly endless disputes between Kamloops Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson and the rest of council isn't clear, in part because the sanctions against him have all been decided in closed meetings.

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The sanctions have been based largely on multiple third-party investigations that Hamer-Jackson would have had the option to answer to before their completion. Sometimes he took that opportunity.

The sanctions have left Hamer-Jackson stripped of his role as council's official spokesperson. He no longer serves on internal committees or outside organizations and his office was moved to the basement of city hall. His salary has also been cut multiple times and he has restrictions on his contact with certain City staff.

Despite his multiple ongoing court files and suggestions that the actions against him might be eventually heard by a judge, he has not specifically challenged any of the censures.

Hamer-Jackson spoke with iNFOnews.ca the week the Paull decision was published and reiterated his assertions that sanctions against him over the past two years are unfair. He had no knowledge, however, of the recent court ruling in Paull's favour.

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