After multiple council meetings in Brampton were cancelled due to a lack of quorum, Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown wants councillors who miss five meetings in a row to be docked pay.

A string of council meetings over the past few months were forced to end before they began when half of the members did not show up. On Friday, Brown said he hopes this new motion, which would dock councillor's pay retroactively after they miss five meetings in a row, will convince them to attend.

“It’s not professional and frankly, when you become a city councillor, you signed an oath to serve the city and I expect better.”

The division at city hall started months earlier, when four councillors, in addition to Brown, refused to participate in meetings with a councillor pre-emptively appointed to replace Charmaine Williams, then-representative for wards 7 and 8 who was recently elected as Member of Provincial Parliament in June. They argued that the appointment wasn’t legal and that any law passed while the individual was in council could be challenged.

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice later agreed with this argument, finding that council’s decision to pre-emptively fill a seat left vacant went against the Municipal Act.

Following this decision, Brown and the four councillors who voted against the appointment set up a time for a special meeting to deal with affairs put on hold while the courts were reviewing the matter.

The meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, had an agenda that was about 900 pages in length.

However, the five councillors who voted for the appointment and who were ordered to pay a combined $20,000 as a result of the court decision did not show up.

The same councillors—councillors Jeff Bowman, Gurpreet Dhillon, Pat Fortini, Martin Medeiros and Doug Whillans— also didn’t show up the following day at the rescheduled meeting.

In a statement, the group said they had informed the mayor’s office they were unavailable to meet as they had “other personal and family commitments.”

“Despite hearing scheduling conflicts from other councillors and being apprised by the city clerk’s office of the fact that a number of members have sent their regrets to attend, nevertheless, the mayor intentionally proceeded to call a meeting knowing quorum will not be reached and the meeting cannot be held,” the group wrote.

“Clearly this is yet another game being played by the mayor.”

Brown, meanwhile, said he's disappointed the six councillors haven’t helped them achieve quorum, which requires six of the 11 elected officials to be present. He argued that even if councillors are on vacation, they do have the capacity to log in virtually to participate and help deal with the agenda, which has now grown to nearly 1,000 pages.

“We’ve made it as easy as possible. I will call the meeting anytime they want it. They can’t make mornings, they can’t make afternoons, they can’t make evenings, whenever they want, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. I will call the meeting to make sure we can attend to make sure we can pass the city business,” he said.

“At the end of the day, they’re getting paid as city councillors. I need them to work for the interest of the city.”