The governance of a Manitoba rural municipality is in limbo after four of five councillors resigned en masse, with at least one citing a “toxic” workplace.
Pat Stein, a now-former councillor for the RM of Armstrong, located just east of Gimli, confirmed that she and three other councillors, Brent Dziadek, Paul Humeny and Ted Sumka, tendered their resignations following a Tuesday council meeting.
“It saddens me that good council members, that love to serve their community, are forced to step down in order to put a halt to the toxic work environment,” Stein wrote in a statement.
She told the Free Press Saturday she couldn’t speak to specifics of the allegations, as they are now being handled through a code of conduct process overseen by the province. She said the four councillors decided together that resigning was “the right decision for the RM.”
“We were headed in a direction which we didn’t want to see happen. There was no continuity, there was no cohesiveness,” Stein said, citing issues with “leadership.”
“We didn’t come to this decision lightly… You know when four councillors resign, there is something not nice.”
Now, council is essentially powerless with just one councillor and the reeve remaining, which is insufficient for quorum.
Reeve Kate Basford said she was not at the Tuesday meeting when the councillors resigned and doesn’t know the full details of their reasons.
Basford said it is well known that there are workplace harassment issues within the RM. She said those left on council are not the target of the allegations.
“There are much bigger issues right now that I can’t even begin to talk about,” she said.
She confirmed that a workplace health and safety and improvement order was issued to the RM in March and that council members had to take harassment training. She a workplace health and safety official told her multiple people are facing multiple workplace complaints.
Basford, who was elected in the October 2022 election, said she ran on a platform of “change.”
“I was elected on change and change is hard and there are growing pains,” she said. “We are still headed in the right direction.”
Stein said eight employees within the RM have resigned since the October 2022 election. “They left for their own reasons,” she said. Basford said her understanding is that the number of employees who left is fewer than eight.
With too few council members to make quorum, the province is expected to step in and appoint an administrator as per the Municipal Act, Basford said. Eventually, byelections will be held to replace the four council members.
The day-to-day operations of the RM should continue uninterupted, Stein said, with remaining office staff expected to continue with their duties.
The Free Press has reached out to the other councillors and CAO for comment. Questions were also sent to the provincial government late Saturday.
katrina.clarke@freepress.mb.ca
Katrina Clarke
Investigative reporter
Katrina Clarke is an investigative reporter with the Winnipeg Free Press.