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The Ombudsman found that only a portion of the closed session discussion held on July 5, 2023 by the Committee of the Whole for the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville regarding a fundraising update fit within the exception for personal matters about an identifiable individual. The Ombudsman determined that information about individual (but not corporate) donors and their wishes constituted personal matters about identifiable individuals, and that the portion of the discussion regarding internal communications that included individual donor information could not have been parsed further. Accordingly, this portion of the closed session discussion fit within the exception for personal matters. However, other portions of the Committee’s closed session discussion, in particular whether or not to discuss the fundraising update in closed session and changes to the public fundraising policy, only contained passing references to identifiable individuals and could have been held in open session. Accordingly, those portions did not fit within this exception or any other exception, and the Ombudsman concluded that the Committee contravened the Municipal Act, 2001.
The Ombudsman reviewed a closed meeting held by the General Issues Committee for the City of Hamilton to discuss the dissolution of the board of directors of a corporation. The meeting relied on the personal matters exception. The committee’s discussions were general in nature and related to the board of directors as a whole. There was no information provided about the board members in their personal capacity. Therefore, council’s discussion did not fit within the personal matters exception.