Conflict of Interest

[Janelle Kulak]

To give background: We are a regulatory body for a health profession and govern our all members in our provincial jurisdiction. According to our Bylaws, to be eligible for council membership, a member of our regulated profession cannot be an owner, director or administrator of an education institution that teaches our profession. We do allow for ONE member of council to be a teacher/educator employed by a school. One of our current council members is such, let's call him John. We have been working on a document that sets the minimum standards of education for our profession. At a recent council meeting, one council member expressed concern that John has a conflict of interest when discussing and voting on the topic/document because he is employed by one of these schools. In a prior consultation meeting with the schools and our council, John did not express any indication that he sided with the schools (who all but one public university, are privately owned). He actually expressed that he wanted to make the standards higher rather than at the lower level the schools are requesting we agree to. John had made a motion to approve the document but before the vote was completed, the other member expressed the conflict of interest concern. John had made the statement that he was merely an educator employed by the school, which again we allow for, but declared that he is in no way a part of the administration or management. Our President stated that there is no conflict and to proceed with the vote. The concerned council member opposed, along with two others who closely follow her lead. Since our council consists of 7 members, the President who was also chairing the meeting, had to vote to break the tie and the motion was passed.

My question is, what is your professional opinion given our situation and if it is found to be in COI, how shall the member go about trying to rescind the motion?  

[George Mervosh]

See FAQ#9 here https://robertsrules.com/frequently-asked-questions/#faqs

[Atul Kapur]

RONR specifically states that members canNOT be prevented from voting because of a conflict of interest.

However I would be shocked if your own policies and procedures or the Act that governs you in your province was silent on conflict of interest.

You should look to those documents. Sometimes they state that the chair will rule on whether there is a conflict of interest in what the member should do. So it is possible that your chair followed proper procedure.

 

You request a "professional opinion". That would require all of the governing documents and more details on the facts, more than you could give us on this form.