An email exchange between a majority of the Town of Caledon Council has been found to constitute an improper closed meeting, following an investigation by Aird & Berlis LLP.
On September 26, 2025, the law firm Aird & Berlis LLP, the Town’s closed meeting investigator, received a formal request for an investigation dated September 22, 2025, regarding an email exchange that took place on September 19 and 20 between members of Council.
The exchange discussed the Town’s Northwest Caledon Indoor Recreation Facility reserve fund.
A member of the public initially reached out to all members of Council via email, raising concerns about the future of the reserve.
The email also copied the Premier of Ontario, the Credit Valley Conservation Authority, the Niagara Escarpment Commission, the Town’s CAO, the Town’s Commissioner of Corporate Services, and Chief Legal Officer and two media outlets.
“Then what happened is,” explained John Mascarin from Aird & Berlis at the March 30th Council meeting, “there was an exchange between a number of members of Council over a period of two days.”
Mascarin explained this becomes problematic as all meetings of Council must be held in an open public forum, and in this instance, the discussion took place between more than a majority of members of Council because the members of Council were present in an electronic setting through email correspondence.
“In my opinion, Council significantly advanced the business or decision-making of the municipality when it dealt with the reserve fund, where certain members of Council exchanged views on what to do with the reserve, and this was inappropriate,” said Mascarin.
Accordingly, he said, they found the meeting was improperly conducted.
“The email exchange was not a simple update or a communication of information. It actually sought input, and it did allow an exchange of thoughts, ideas, and a debate through email correspondence out of the view of the public.”
As a result of this investigation, the Town of Caledon will address the Closed Meeting Investigation Report in various ways.
The first being that all members of Council will attend a comprehensive education and training session presented by a reputable and qualified resource on open and closed meetings under the Municipal Act, 2001, in the first quarter of 2027.
Procedure By-law 2025-081 will also be amended to require Council members to refrain from sending or copying all or a majority of members of Council on electronic communications on any matters related to the business or decision-making of the Council, as well as requiring Council members to refrain from sending or copying other members if they are aware of an email chain or email thread that involves other members on the same subject matter.
By Riley Murphy, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Original Published on Apr 02, 2026 at 10:59
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