North Frontenac Set Bid Rules Behind Closed Doors. Six Days Later, It Posted the RFP.
By Donald Morton, NFNM
North Frontenac council went behind closed doors on April 10 and came out with a motion to direct staff to negotiate with the second-highest-scoring bidder and increase the township’s bonding requirement by 5X. Six days later, the township posted the RFP.
The motion and bylaw that followed raise questions about whether a procurement policy change and a specific project instruction belong in a closed session at all, whether contractors are being shut out by a bonding threshold set without public debate, and whether public money is being committed through a process decided out of public view. Ontario’s Municipal Act requires council deliberations to happen in the open, with narrow exceptions. The sequence of events on April 10 appears to contravene that requirement, based on Ombudsman precedent in comparable cases.
What the public record shows
The April 10 meeting is documented by NFNM’s direct video review and the meeting’s own audio transcript, publicly available on YouTube.
At 2:58:47 in the recording, Mayor Gerry Lichty directed council to move into closed session. The formal motion was moved by Councillor Hermer and seconded by Councillor Fowler. The stated basis was two items: adoption of minutes from the March 20, 2026 meeting, and “advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose.” That language corresponds to section 239(2)(f) of Ontario’s Municipal Act. No other closed-session exception was cited.
When council returned from closed session, Lichty reported that council had adopted the March 20 minutes and discussed solicitor-client privileged advice.
What followed came fast. The Clerk read a motion, moved by Deputy Mayor Roy Huetl and seconded by Councillor John Inglis, with two parts. The motion text, as recorded in the transcript:
“The council instructs the Manager Community Development to negotiate the next highest scoring bidder and if budget compliance is not met the Manager Community Development is required to reissue the RFP and that the procurement policy be amended to amend section 4.5 to $500,000 from $100,000 for bonding requirement.”
The chair asked for discussion. None was offered. The motion carried.
Immediately after, By-law 2026-29 was introduced, also moved by Huetl and seconded by Inglis. The bylaw formalized the bonding change from $100,000 to $500,000. It was read three times and passed on the spot.
The bylaw’s own text references “the meeting held April 12, 2026.” The meeting was held on April 10. That date error has not been publicly corrected.
What closed sessions are for
Section 239(2) of Ontario’s Municipal Act sets out eleven categories that justify closing a meeting to the public. Among them: personnel matters, labour negotiations, litigation or potential litigation, land acquisition, public security, solicitor-client privilege, and a category covering negotiation positions, plans, or instructions to be applied to any negotiations carried on or to be carried on by the municipality.
The only exception council cited on April 10 was solicitor-client privilege, section 239(2)(f). That exception covers discussions of legal advice and the communications needed to give or receive it. It does not cover policy deliberation. The Ontario Ombudsman has drawn this line repeatedly: receiving legal advice behind closed doors is permitted, but using that advice as the platform for a policy decision that is then made behind closed doors is not automatically covered.
One other exception deserves attention. Section 239(2)(k) permits closing a meeting to discuss negotiation positions or instructions to be applied to municipal negotiations. The motion directed staff to “negotiate the next highest scoring bidder.” But 239(2)(k) was not cited by council on April 10. And the Ombudsman’s test for this exception requires that negotiations be ongoing or planned at the time of the closed session. The RFP did not post until April 16, six days later. No contractor negotiation was active on April 10.
The bonding increase from $100,000 to $500,000 is a policy change. It amends the township’s procurement policy and affects every contractor who bids on North Frontenac projects going forward. The direction to negotiate with the next-highest-scoring bidder is a procurement decision tied to a specific project. Neither is, on its face, legal advice.
No prior open-session discussion of the bonding increase appears in the public record. No staff report recommending the change has been identified in the April 10 agenda materials.
The Ombudsman precedent
The Ontario Ombudsman investigated a comparable situation in Elliot Lake in 2024. The City of Elliot Lake’s Finance and Administration Committee held a closed session in December 2023 to receive a presentation on procurement policy, citing the education and training provision of the Act. The Ombudsman found the committee had contravened the Municipal Act because the session went beyond training and involved substantive discussion of a draft procurement bylaw. The finding was published in September 2024.
The Elliot Lake case involved discussion of a procurement policy in a closed meeting. North Frontenac’s case involves the passage of a procurement policy amendment that emerged from a closed meeting. By the Ombudsman’s own standard, the North Frontenac scenario raises the same question.
In a separate case, the Ombudsman found that the City of Timmins could not justify closing a procurement discussion by claiming a speculative risk of litigation from a disappointed bidder. The Ontario Court of Appeal’s 1999 decision in Tarmac Canada Inc. v. Hamilton-Wentworth reinforces the point from the other direction: when a municipality evaluates bids by disclosed criteria, it owes a duty of good faith to follow those criteria. A direction to negotiate with the next-highest scorer, issued from a closed session with no public explanation, creates the kind of record gap courts have found problematic.
The “next highest scoring bidder”
The motion’s instruction to “negotiate the next highest scoring bidder” raises a question: what happened to the bidder who scored highest?
The motion does not say the top scorer was rejected or disqualified. It directs staff to negotiate with the next one. No reason for passing over the highest-scoring bidder appears in the public record. The motion also includes a fallback: if “budget compliance is not met” through negotiation with the next-highest-scoring bidder, staff must reissue the RFP.
A project with history
This is not the first attempt to procure this rink roof. Frontenac News reporting indicates that North Frontenac received a $310,473 grant from the Ontario Community Sport and Recreation Infrastructure Fund for a roof and change room at the Plevna rink, with the township contributing up to $367,000 for a total project budget near $693,861. The first tender, in September 2025, attracted no bidders. The second attempt drew bids that exceeded the budget.
RFP 2026-08, posted April 16 to the township’s Facebook page, is the third procurement attempt. The RFP seeks proposals to build a roof over the outdoor rink at 6598 Buckshot Lake Road in Plevna. Proposals close April 30 at 2:00 p.m. The contact listed is Brooke Ross, Manager of Community Development. Two failed rounds of bidding explain why council was looking for ways to get the project done. But that pressure does not change the rules governing how procurement decisions are made.
What a $500,000 bond means
Ontario’s Construction Act requires performance bonds and payment bonds for public contracts valued at $500,000 or more. North Frontenac’s new bonding threshold matches that provincial floor exactly.
The township could argue it was aligning its policy with provincial statute. The practical effect, though, is that bonds of this size carry costs that can be significant for smaller firms. For a 14-day bidding window (April 16 to April 30), arranging a $500,000 bond on short notice is a real obstacle for contractors without established surety relationships.
North Frontenac has a population of about 2,000 permanent residents. The local construction contractor base reflects that scale. A $500,000 bond is routine for large firms. It is less routine for the smaller rural contractors who serve communities in the Addington Highlands and North Frontenac area.
The prior bonding threshold was $100,000. No documented rationale for the jump to $500,000 has appeared in the public record. The change was announced from closed session, passed without debate, and formalized in a bylaw that was read three times in the same sitting.
Right of reply
NFNM submitted questions to North Frontenac municipal staff on April 16 regarding the closed-session discussion, the bonding change, and the direction to negotiate with the next-highest-scoring bidder. Mayor Lichty replied: “I will not be responding!” No other response was received from the township. This article will be updated if a further response is provided.
What remains unanswered
Whether a staff report supported the bonding change. Whether the highest-scoring bidder was formally set aside or simply passed over. Whether the closed-session discussion that produced this motion and bylaw went beyond the legal advice that section 239(2)(f) is designed to protect.
The official minutes of the April 10 meeting have not yet been posted by the township. When they are, they will show the formal record of the closed-session report-back and the motion text. NFNM will follow up.
The RFP closes April 30. No one from North Frontenac has answered NFNM’s questions about how the terms were set.
Donald Morton is the founder and editor of NFNM. He attended the April 10 council meeting remotely via the township’s public livestream and reviewed the full video recording. NFNM’s coverage of North Frontenac council is ongoing.
