Borderland Pride released a statement on the Township of Emo’s response to the freedom of information request sent in by the Fort Frances Times. In it, Borderland Pride suggests the delay is unwarranted, and Emo’s council consider themselves to be the “51st state.”
“The CAO’s request for a delay until August 2025 to respond to this request is absurd,” reads the statement from Borderland Pride. “Clearly the Township of Emo thinks that not only do human rights and discrimination laws not apply to it, but that access to information laws don’t either. While the members of their council might think they’re the 51st state, they are an Ontario municipality and are subject to Ontario law.”
Moreover, Borderland Pride believes “taxpayers in that municipality should be offended by the flagrant lack of transparency.”
“It should take the CAO 5 minutes to respond to this request,” reads the statement. “This unacceptable delay shows that there is political interference in this process by [Emo’s] council – a council that does not want taxpayers to know how much of their money they have spent defending the bigotry of Harold McQuaker.”
Furthermore, Borderland Pride suggested the Fort Frances Times ought to appeal this delay.
“Our advice to the Times would be to appeal the delay to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. There is no world in which the proposed delay is reasonable, nor is there any reason not to produce this information,” reads Borderland Pride’s statement. “The Information and Privacy Commissioner has repeatedly found that even lawyers’ invoices to municipalities are producible to the public, subject to redactions of the confidential information.”
Borderland Pride also submitted a freedom of information request of its own that the municipality refused, suggesting the request to be “vexatious” in nature.
“Back in spring 2024, Borderland Pride made a very similar freedom of information request about the amount of the municipality’s spending on this human rights claim. The municipality also refused disclosure in response to our request. Their refusal cited the fact that we were the ones who made the human rights complaint, falsely suggesting that it was vexatious for us to want this public information,” reads the statement. “We have appealed their refusal to the Information and Privacy Commissioner, where the municipality has refused mediation and the matter is proceeding to adjudication. We have also sued the Township at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario again – on the basis of reprisal – as it is obvious from the response we received from the CAO that the refusal to disclose the records to us was in retaliation for our discrimination claim. Reprisals are prohibited by the Human Rights Code. The Township has yet to respond to this new claim.”
Borderland Pride’s conclusion on this is that Emo is “willing to hemorrhage taxpayer money to protect the fragile egos of three old men.”
“What emerges from this is a council that is willing to hemorrhage taxpayer money to protect the fragile egos of three old men who made an illegal decision on May 12, 2020. They should come clean and tell the community how much they think Harold McQuaker’s homophobia is worth.”
