Rick Chiarelli

Chiarelli grew up in the Qualicum-Graham Park neighbourhood of Nepean,[4] and has lived in Nepean his whole life.[1] His father owned a real estate agency and a restaurant and co-started Ottawa/Algonquin Travel with Lowell Green, while his mother was a homemaker.[4]

At age 16, while attending St. Pius X High School[5] in Ottawa, Chiarelli formed the Ontario Students Alliance for Fair Funding (OSAFF) to fight for the equality that was promised in the Canadian Constitution. At this time, Ontario’s separate schools were funded only to grade 10. Beyond this, a high school student was required to pay substantial tuition fees.

Chiarelli began to speak at hundreds of schools and the OSAFF quickly grew to over 70,000 members across Ontario.

OSAFF launched a legal challenge against the Government of Ontario’s treatment of separate schools and convinced Ian Scott, a prominent Canadian lawyer, to represent them in court. The action was timed to coincide with the visit to the Premier by Pope John Paul II. The court imposed deadlines on the Province to file its full defence to the action. As a result, Premier Bill Davis announced a change in the Province’s century old policy and granted full funding to separate schools. The case was unanimously won by OSAFF 9-0 at the Supreme Court of Canada.

During OSAFF’s legal challenge, at the age of 19, Chiarelli ran for school trustee of the Carleton Separate School Board and won in the 1982 elections.[6] This resulted in Chiarelli becoming the youngest ever elected official in the province.[7]

Chiarelli has a law degree from the University of Ottawa,[5] but is not a member of the Law Society of Ontario. He also has a Communications and Economics Degree.[1]

At the age of 22, Chiraelli ran for a seat on the council of the Regional Municipality of Ottawa Carleton in the 1985 elections, but lost by nearly 2,000 votes.[8]

In the 1988 municipal election, he was elected to the Nepean City Council for the Borden ward.[9] In the 1991 municipal election, he once again ran for a seat on regional council, but lost by 500 votes.[10] He ran for election on Nepean City Council in 1994 in the newly created Nepean Centre Ward and was re-elected by acclamation in 1997. While on Nepean City Council, he briefly served as acting mayor of the city.[5] On September 17, 1998, Chiarelli won the Ontario Liberal Party nomination for the new riding of Ottawa West—Nepean for the 1999 Ontario general election. Chiarelli defeated sitting Liberal MPP Alex Cullen, who was an "outspoken and independent minded MPP" and would later cross the floor to join the NDP in his defeat. Chiarelli would go on to lose the election to Progressive Conservative Gary Guzzo.[11]

The 2000 municipal election was the first for the newly amalgamated City of Ottawa. Chiarelli, who had been a leading opponent of amalgamation, faced long-time Councillor Al Loney in what was thought would be one of the tightest election battles of the year. Chiarelli prevailed by nearly 2,000 votes, and became councillor for Baseline Ward. In 2003, Chiarelli was re-elected by acclamation. In 2006, after ward boundary changes, Chiarelli faced a challenge from cycling activist Brett Delmage in the newly created College Ward. Chiarelli won by a wide majority, securing 73% of the votes. He won despite criticisms that he appeared to be "bored with his job", and sometimes slept at council meetings. His campaign focused on improving police and fire services in his ward and a desire to keep property tax increases to a minimum. During his time on council, he voted against expanding Ottawa's north-south light rail plan and served as chairman of the Ottawa Public Library Board.[12] He was easily re-elected in 2010 running on a campaign of wanting to "keep taxes down" and having council focus on "'core' services", as well as his work with the plan to redevelop Lansdowne Park, improving Centrepointe Town Centre and the launch of the Bells Corners business Improvement association.[13] He was again easily re-elected in 2014, an election which made him the longest serving city councillor (including his time on Nepean council). During the campaign, he spoke out against illegal rooming house conversions and his ward becoming a "party scene" student ghetto for Algonquin College.[14] Chiarelli faced tougher competition in 2018, defeating lawyer Emilie Coyle by 1,300 votes. Voters in the ward had called for renewal of city facilities and infrastructure and student housing.[15] Chiarelli campaigned on maintaining roads and infrastructure in the short-term.[2]

Beginning in September 2019, several former employees have come forward with allegations of inappropriate statements in the Councillor's office.[16] Two complaints concerned Chiarelli asking female staffers if they were comfortable not wearing a bra and one of the women recalled during her interview how the councillor described revealing outfits worn by others and asked her what her thoughts were about wearing shirts that showed the side of a woman's breasts.[16] Also, five women claimed they heard Chiarelli making inappropriate comments in the workplace, including a joke repeatedly told about "needing to sanitize one of the office desks because a former employee had had sex on it with another councillor".[16] According to an official complaint filed by someone who interviewed for a position at Chiarelli's office - and an unnamed source contacted by CBC News - the counsellor described a strategy for signing up volunteers by having women from his office go to bars and flirt and drink with men in order to pressure them into volunteering at the counsellor's office. The complainant said Chiarelli did not explicitly tell her that her job offer was conditional on her willingness to go to bars and flirt with men or on her willingness to not wear a bra but said it wasn't clear if she'd be pressured to do those things once she got the job.[16] By October 23 a total of 13 women had come forward with allegations concerning inappropriate behaviour and comments made by the counsellor, including asking women to not wear bras to functions.[17]

In response, counsellor Chiarelli issued a statement denying all the allegations: "This situation has reached a level of seriousness, and has adopted what I can only describe as an apparent ‘mob-mentality’ approach to the inaccurate characterization of past events, where I need to write this to step forward and defend my good name, reputation, and three decades of public service, irrespective of any potential adverse health consequences".[18] In October the councillor threatened to seek a judicial review to stop the integrity commissioner from looking into the complaints on the grounds that the commissioner was exceeding his power, while also accusing the city of bias against him throughout the investigation.[19] No such action ended up being taken at that time, though he ended up filing the request for a judicial review in July 2020 as the 1st of two reports was about to be published.[20]

The 1st of two reports by the city's integrity commissioner was published in July 2020 after a 10 month long investigation of three complaints. He recommended Chiarelli's pay be suspended for 9 months at a value of more than $79,000. The breakdown was 3 months for each of the complaints added back-to-back, which is the harshest possible punishment for the allegations.[3] The commissioner recommended the sanctions for the veteran councillor for his "offensive and disreputable behaviour [which] has been going on for a very long time...".[3] The commissioner found that Chiarelli's behaviour qualified as harassment under the city's policies by "...exploit[ing] the power dynamic of the situation, in which the Respondent held out the possibility of employment, to sexualize the discussion and questions in a manner that was upsetting and unacceptable" and that "such a comportment by an elected public office holder deeply harms the public interest and seriously damages the trust covenant with the citizens who elect them".[3]

On November 20, 2020 the 2nd report was published and recommended Chiarelli be removed from all committees and have an additional six month's pay withheld for "incomprehensible incidents of harassment" against staff.[21][22] On November 25 city council voted unanimously to impose the recommended sanctions on Chiarelli and also demanded his immediate resignation.[23]

On December 4, 2020 it was reported that following the city's integrity commissioner referring information from his investigation to the appropriate authorities, the Ontario Provincial Police were investigating Chiarelli.[24]

Rick Chiarelli is a second cousin of former Mayor Bob Chiarelli. Chiarelli is married to Lida and has three daughters.[5] They live in the Lynwood neighbourhood of Bells Corners.[4] He had heart surgery in December 2019.[25]

Results:

* Daigler would later win by 8 votes on a recount.

• Rick Chiarelli website
• City biography