HALIFAX—A majority of council wants a staff report on requiring councillors to take a leave of absence to run for other levels of government, although it’s not clear whether it has the power to make the change.

The request for a staff report from Councillor Shawn Cleary stems from a report from Nova Scotia’s chief electoral officer, released last week.

Elections Nova Scotia CEO Richard Temporale recommended Halifax consider requiring councillors running for provincial office to take a leave of absence during the election period and to restrict councillors’ use of their discretionary funds during the election period.

“When the chief electoral officer, the person who is responsible for ensuring democratic process throughout our province says, ‘You might want to look at this,’ I think it behooves us to actually look at it,” Cleary told his colleagues on Tuesday.

“As we move down the road to more accountability, more transparency, more fairness, this is another step we can take.”

The recommendations came in a report into allegations that Councillor Steve Craig, who’s running in the Sackville-Cobequid byelection scheduled for later this month, used his municipal discretionary funds to buy provincial votes. Temporale cleared Craig of wrongdoing, but recommended changes at the provincial and municipal levels to provide clarity in the future.

Cleary said he knows Craig is “an honourable person who is following all the rules and would of course not break the rules,” but he believes council requires new rules to ensure consistency.

There is a notable lack of consistency in councillors’ approach to the issue. At least 10 sitting councillors have run for provincial office and won the election since amalgamation in 1996. Some took a leave of absence or donated their pay and others continued to work and take their pay.

Councillor David Hendsbee was sitting as a councillor in 1999 when he successfully ran to become a member of the legislature, before heading back to city hall in 2003. He told his colleagues on Tuesday that his pay from the two jobs overlapped when he was elected provincially.

“I donated that overlap of pay to local churches in my district at that time because I felt that I should not be double-dipping,” he said, “because elected officials should only be paid by one taxpayer and not being paid twice by the same taxpayer.”

Hendsbee said he hoped the staff report would examine that issue, but he said the chief electoral officer’s recommendation should be to the province only, as it sets the rules.

Temporale did make a recommendation to the provincial government as well: that it amend legislation “to require elected local officials and members of other legislative assemblies to, at minimum, take a leave of absence from their other elected position during the election period.”

Municipal solicitor John Traves said the terms of councillors’ employment are set out in the provincial Elections Act. The only requirement for running for other levels of government is that councillors must resign within 30 days of being elected to another government.

Traves doesn’t think Halifax has the power to change the policy.

“I’m not sure where the elections officer came from on the recommendations, but I’d be surprised beyond that,” he said.

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The other part of the recommendation — to restrict access to discretionary funds — is within Halifax’s powers though, Traves said.

Cleary’s motion for a staff report passed by a vote of 8-6.

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