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Former RM of Sherwood Reeve Tim Probe is going to be heading back to court to defend himself once again on a breach of trust charge.
In 2018, Probe was found not guilty of both breach of trust and a charge of municipal corruption. The Crown appealed only the decision on the breach of trust charge and, as of Wednesday, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal set aside the acquittal and has ordered a new trial.
On Feb. 1, 2016, Probe met with the reeve, Jeffrey Poissant, at a coffee shop and Poissant recorded the conversation which ended up being played in court.
The trial judge found that in that meeting, Probe tried to trade his vote on a gas station development, which would have benefitted Poissant’s parents, for Poissant’s lobbying of other councillors on a motion to have councillors pay back legal fees — that could have resulted in Probe being asked to pay back $50,000 in fees.
In court, Probe’s lawyer argued that Probe was just trying to find a way to resolve two divisive issues on council.
Though he accepted what happened at the meeting between Probe and Poissant, the judge said Probe’s actions weren’t a “serious and marked departure” from the standards expected of his as a councillor.
In the appeal decision on Wednesday, Justice Robert Leurer wrote that the error in law from the original judge was that he didn’t account for the part of the Municipalities Act which says that no member of a municipal council shall attempt to influence the discussion or voting on any question, decision, recommendation or other action in which the member has a conflict of interest.
The original judge also found that he had a reasonable doubt that Probe had intended to use his office for anything other than the public good, but Leurer wrote: “The trial judge erred in law by failing to consider the possibility that Mr. Probe may have had other, additional, non-public good purposes in mind when he acted in the ways he did during his meeting with the RM’s reeve.”
While the charges were being dealt with, Probe refused to resign his seat as councillor, despite calls for him to do so. He was eventually removed from his seat by a court order.