Kamloops councillor won’t be reprimanded by city for offensive photo

KAMLOOPS – The City of Kamloops has received a request to censure Coun. Donovan Cavers following a photo of the councillor ‘flipping the bird’ to Ajax Mine documents, but the mayor doesn’t foresee any formal reprimand.

Mayor Peter Milobar says while the public may find Cavers action objectionable, censuring the councillor isn’t going to happen.

Local resident Dennis Giesbrecht submitted a request to the city yesterday, March 16, to censure, or formally disapprove of, Cavers’s actions and has started an online petition to pressure Cavers to be recused from council discussions on the Ajax Mine.

“It won’t happen,” Milobar says. “We simply don’t have the tools to do something like that.”

The bar for censure is quite high Milobar says, requiring something like failing to take an oath or sharing confidential information. He says a photo shared on social media with an objectionable gesture doesn’t reach that bar. He says the city will send Giesbrecht a letter explaining why there will be no censure.

“We want to make sure he has a full and complete answer back,” he says.

While Milobar says he understands some people are unhappy with Cavers, he says voting in elections is the only option at this point.

“It’s really up to the voters to decide,” Milobar says. “It’s about how you conduct yourself once you’re an elected official.”

Cavers posted the photo on his personal Facebook account earlier this week and took it down shortly after. He apologized for the any offence caused via Twitter yesterday. 

Cavers and Milobar are both running the upcoming provincial election. Cavers is a candidate for the B.C. Green Party in the riding of Kamloops-South Thompson and Milobar is running for the B.C. Liberals in the riding of Kamloops-North Thompson.

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