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A reading lesson
We don’t often repeat ourselves verbatim, but considering the number of not-very-old bylaws this council is re-considering, we thought our two cents from about four summers ago was worth putting into the conversation again. From Aug. 9, 2007:
If you’ve ever attended a regular meeting of Uxbridge Council (not the Committee meetings, which are the same people wearing different hats, but the actual Council meeting, which falls at 9:30 a.m. on the second Monday and 7 p.m. on the fourth Monday of each month), you may have noticed a little agenda item tacked on near the end, when everyone is pretty close to dozing off.
It’s called “Bylaws”, and contrary to appearances, it’s pretty important stuff. Our municipality does almost everything by bylaw, from hiring the dogcatcher to adopting its annual budget. But you wouldn’t guess the importance of bylaws from how they’re dealt with by Council.
First of all, in the material that’s available to you, the interested public, all that appears of the bylaw is a number and a title. Presumably the Councillors themselves have the full text of the bylaw in front of them, but the gallery (and we peons of the press) get next to nothing unless we specifically ask for it. Not the content of the bylaw, and certainly nothing explaining its significance. We’ve complained of this before, but if the Township had a communications officer, someone whose sole job it was to translation the activities of the municipality to its residents and beyond, that person could easily whip up a handy-dandy paragraph or two interpreting the bylaws, which tend to be jargon-laden, for the hoi-polloi to whom they’re directed.
The second factor which might lead you to wrongly believe that the bylaws are rather insignificant little trifles, is the cavalier manner in which they’re passed. There is rarely any debate; they’re usually not even dealt with on their own. Instead, a whole conglomeration of bylaws, dealing with wildly different issues and having hugely different import, are tossed together as a package. They are given first and second “reading” (although, of course, they are not actually read). Thirty seconds later, they are given third reading and therefore passed. In less than a minute, usually, the whole tawdry business of bylaws is over and done with. What has just happened, believe it or not, may have profound implications on the future of the Township. Millions of dollars may have been spent. But it’s polished off in less time than it takes to run a horse race.
The process is, to put it mildly, a farce. The three “readings” of a bylaw, as with any other law at the provincial or federal level, are a tradition passed down from British common law. The idea, of course, is to literally read out the content of the legislation to the listening electorate, and to give them some time to mull it over. Some time later, having listened to the input of the people, the lawmakers make some changes and read the law a second time. Again, time for sober thought is given. Then, after everybody has thoroughly digested and debated the finest details of the law, and honed it to perfection, it is read a third time and becomes law.
Over time, the process has become compressed. In most jurisdictions and at most levels, there are only two readings (either the first and second readings are combined, or the last two). And Uxbridge makes a pretense at this, by separating the third reading from the first two. But the ritual is nonsensical, because there is no time at all before third reading. None. Zilch. And this is by no means common practice in Ontario municipalities. In many of them, there are at least two weeks, sometimes longer, before the final passage of a bylaw.
The argument we will get is that the nitty-gritty of most of the bylaws is hashed out in committee; that’s where debate takes place, so the “readings” are no more than a formality. Perhaps, but the fact remains that the bylaws are the nitty-gritty. They are the law, they are the only thing that finally matters. We suspect that most of the Council have no idea why they’re doing three “readings” in the first place. Maybe they should learn.
