Canada/A code of conduct to protect municipal employees in Devon, Alberta

Last Monday, a municipality in Alberta decided to impose rules on residents to protect municipal employees.

Devon, south of Edmonton, will adopt a code of conduct to limit inappropriate behaviour towards public servants, such as harassment and intimidation.

According to Ben Gronberg, a local city councillor, no specific incidents have prompted the decision. However, he says he has observed an increase in harassment and mistreatment of municipal employees across the country.

The City Council's role is to ensure that public servants and municipal employees who work with the public are protected," he says.

The city council has therefore established procedures for dealing with breaches of the code of conduct, which can be broken down into four stages.

If the rules are broken for the first time, the employee receives a warning from the municipality.

If he or she chooses not to comply, he or she may then be restricted to a single point of contact with one of the representatives chosen by the Municipality. A case of further inappropriate behavior may result in restriction to a single indirect means of communication, whether by e-mail or telephone.

Finally, if the person chooses not to comply with the rules, he or she runs the risk of being banned from certain public places or from doing business with the Municipality.

Devon follows Lethbridge's lead

Last July, the Municipality of Lethbridge, close to the U.S. border, introduced a similar procedure. As a result, people can suffer a reduction in the services offered to them if their behavior is inappropriate towards public servants.

Sometimes, on rare occasions, interactions between staff and community members can turn ugly," explains city councillor Belinda Crowson.

Sometimes it's yelling and screaming, and other times it's just the persistence with which people contact us.

A quote from Belinda Crowson, Lethbridge City Councillor

In Wetaskiwin, Mayor Tyler Gandam is not surprised by the adoption of such measures. Municipal workers in his community are also subject to violence from the public.

Recently, a municipal employee was quoted as saying that the shooting at Edmonton City Hall last January was no surprise.

Tyler Gandam called these remarks veiled threats, but threats nonetheless.

While Wetaskiwin has yet to adopt specific policies on this kind of behavior, the mayor believes that a global culture change is needed.

Source: ici.radio-canada.ca