City council defeats motion to further investigate Coun. Carra's code of conduct violation

Calgary's city council will not be asking the minister of municipal affairs or the police to look into the actions of Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra, who did not officially disclose his financial interest in a property in Inglewood.

Council recently sanctioned the Ward 9 councillor after the city's integrity commissioner found he violated council's code of conduct by repeatedly failing to properly disclose the property.

Carra publicly apologized on Tuesday.

Coun. Jennifer Wyness said a deeper investigation into Carra's land dealings is warranted. She wants the province or police to examine Carra giving a friend a $300,000 down payment, which he described as a handshake deal.

But the motion to refer the report into Carra's conduct to other agencies for further investigation was defeated in a 7-7 tie vote at Wednesday's council meeting. 

Coun. Peter Demong said he is disappointed by Carra's actions

"My colleague was being a dumbass and I'm not going to apologize for that name because he was," said Demong. 

Demong said the integrity commissioner's job includes referring matters to the police, but in this case she didn't.

Carra was absent from Wednesday's council meeting and didn't take part in the discussion or vote.

Deeply divided city council

Mayor Jyoti Gondek said city council is deeply divided on the motion about Carra's code of conduct violation.

"Some of us voted against. Some people voted in favour because they felt for public transparency there should be an investigation through the police service," said Gondek.

"So, you saw push and pull of our understanding of the integrity commissioner's office."

Coun. Jasmine Mian, who voted against the motion, said the fact that discussions about Carra have been going on for three weeks now is "bad for our city."

"It's very frustrating for me and for my residents that we continue to focus on the poor behaviour of government officials as opposed to the real work of what we need to do for this city," she said.

Wyness noted any citizen can ask the government or the police to investigate Carra's actions, which is something she'll consider doing.