CITY COUNCIL – Take a polygraph and I will too, mayor challenges Neustaeter

Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson challenged Coun. Katie Neustaeter Tuesday (October. 6, 2026) to take a lie detector test and said he’ll do the same.

It came after a three-hour afternoon session at a regular council meeting — the last one before the Oct. 17 civic election — during his Mayor’s Report.

“I’d like to talk a little bit about polygraph tests and crime,” he began.

He then quickly connected his remarks to a claim by Neustaeter in May 2024 that he had monitored her bathroom breaks during council meetings.

Hamer-Jackson sued Neustaeter over it the following year, saying she sent an email to senior administrators and other councillors accusing him of “surreptitiously tracking her movements, documenting when she uses the bathroom, engaging in creepy behaviour and being an unsafe person.”

The email was in response to one the mayor had sent to civic operations manager Jen Fretz asking why Neustaeter was allowed into a restricted area of City Hall. Fretz replied by email, with a copy to other council members, that Neustaeter had permission to use a washroom in the area despite a policy forbidding council members to enter that part of the building.

The mayor’s lawsuit also claimed Neustaeter had repeated her accusation at a meeting with council and staff.

Hamer-Jackson has repeatedly said he was only interested in knowing why Neustaeter was in a restricted area of the building, not whether she was visiting the washroom. He claimed in his lawsuit that Neustaeter had defamed him with her accusation about washroom breaks.

The suit has reportedly been inactive for several months.

Tuesday he proposed mutual polygraphs to clear it up. He said the kind of behaviour Neustaeter accused him of is a crime, and she should report it to the RCMP. “I will take a polygraph test and I think she should, too.”

Coun. Nancy Bepple tried to interrupt him but Hamer-Jackson finished up and Neustaeter then countered with references to their legal battles, quoting the “crossing personal and professional boundaries” claim she made in a speech on behalf of councillors in 2023. That remark was the subject of a different lawsuit filed by the mayor. It was thrown out of court.

She said Tuesday the evidence backed up her side of the story.

“Have a great day, everyone,” she concluded.

The entire exchange took about one minute before the meeting was unofficially recessed for a public hearing.