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City's live stream of hospital announcement deleted after Windsor CAO cites ‘political’ concerns

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Windsor’s acting chief administrative officer says he made the call for the city to delete a recent live stream of a media announcement regarding the future hospital on County Road 42 over concerns it would become too political.

On Tuesday, Windsor Regional Hospital officials announced they hired a global architecture firm to move forward with designs for the city’s new acute care hospital. Hospital officials were joined by Ontario’s Deputy Premier and Minister of Health, Sylvia Jones, and Windsor mayoral candidate Drew Dilkens.

The announcement was streamed live by the City of Windsor on social media. Following the announcement event, the live stream was removed from the city’s social media platforms that same day.

Onorio Colucci, acting CAO for the City of Windsor, tells CTV News he was behind the city’s move to pull down the live stream due to concerns it would appear as partisan favouring one candidate.

“The intent of the event was a very legitimate announcement with ministerial participation about a major initiative (the new hospital) which has been approved by council and is of significant importance to the community,” said Colucci in a statement.

“However, staff later advised me that the media questions and prodding after the announcement led to discussions that some could have perhaps construed as political in nature. Therefore, out of an abundance of caution, I decided it was prudent to pull the use of City resources.”

Media members in attendance did ask questions regarding Dilkens’ platform during Tuesday’s announcement, as the new hospital has been a hot-button issue during this municipal campaign.

During a recent campaign event, Dilkens — who has touted his support for the location of the new hospital — said mayoral candidate Chris Holt being elected would risk killing the hospital project altogether for the City of Windsor.

While Holt originally voted against the site of the new hospital years ago, he recently said he would not get in the way of funding the acute care hospital and would work to ensure its development on County Road 42 is successful, referring to Dilkens’ recent comments about him as “fear-mongering.”

City officials say the live stream was available on its social media platforms for about two hours before it was taken down.

Business consultant Melinda Munro questions why the city would live stream an announcement for the hospital.

"It wasn't a city announcement," said Munro, adding Windsor's CAO made the right call to delete the stream.

"The hospital was announcing that Stantec was joining, so why is the city live streaming that? That is an interesting question."

The city's code of conduct prohibits municipal resources from being used to endorse any specific candidate. For Munro, the city needs to set clearer boundaries around promoting what could be considered by some to be campaign-type events.

"Once the writ drops in an election period, so you've got about 12 weeks, the city should probably not live stream stuff," said Munro, adding the city should also consider when media questions could pour into election-related matters. "They can't prevent [media] from asking the questions you want to ask."

The municipal election is Oct. 24. 

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