Roger Varley has been in the news business almost 40 years with The Canadian Press/Broadcast News, Uxbnridge Times-Journal, Richmond Hill Liberal and Uxbridge Cosmos. Co-winner with two others of CCNA national feature writing award. In Scout movement over 30 years, almost 25 as a leader. Took Uxbridge youths to World Jamboree in Holland. Involved in community theatre for 20 years as actor, director, playwright, stage manager etc. Born in England, came to Canada at 16, lived most of life north and east of Toronto with a five-year period in B.C.
What's going on at council?
There are a few ways to find out what's going on at Uxbridge Council. One can attend council meetings, read the council agenda on the township's web page or obtain a much reduced narrative by reading of council doings in the local newspapers.
But there are drawbacks to all three methods. The newspaper article, for example, only gives you what the reporter thinks was important because the space allotted for the council story is dependent on a number of factors.
Reading the agenda on the township page will allow you to see all the correspondence and the reports to be discussed at the council meeting, but it will not allow you to hear councillors' comments on the various issues and will not give you an account of what various deputants say when they appear before council.
That leaves attending council meetings in person. If you have the time available - and some meetings have been known to go on for four hours or more - you can sit in the public gallery and follow the action - to a point.
As a member of the public, you will be provided with an agenda showing what will be discussed, but it will not contain copies of the correspondence or reports that council will be discussing. If, as happened this week, for example, Council votes to support the Township of Brock's position on the prorogation of the Ontario legislature, you won't know what position they are supporting because you don't have a copy of the correspondence. Unless, of course, you are willing to pay $10 to have the complete agenda printed for you.
And that edict now applies to the three community newspapers that cover council meetings for you. As of this month, the Township has stopped supplying the council reporters with full copies of the agenda. We get the slimmed-down version the public gets. If we want the full copy, we have to pay $10. In other words, the township has found a way to save a paltry $30 a week.
The full agenda allows the reporters to follow more closely what councillors are talking about. At budget time, it allows us to follow the numbers being discussed. And, at the end of council meetings when the mayor asks us if we have any questions, the full agenda allows us to ask more intelligent, informed questions. Without it, as happened Monday, we just sit there, mute. As Adam observes in The Diaries of Adam and Eve:"A person cannot think if he does not have the material to think with."
Yes, the three newspapers could print out the agenda from the web-page, but that is too much like being charged for doing our jobs. Even more than that, if a member of the public has to pay $10 for an agenda when they have taken the considerable time and effort to attend a council meeting, how does that encourage public participation? And there is nothing more bewildering than listening to a group of people discuss an issue where they have all the information and you have none.
In the last municipal election, there was a good deal of talk by some of the candidates about making council more accessible to the public. Charging them $10 a pop does not seem to me to be making it more accessible.
On top of that, this current council seems to be holding in-camera (or private) sessions with increasing regularity. There have been close to 20 in-camera sessions this year alone. The Ontario Municipal Act says a council meeting or part of a meeting may be closed to the public if the subject matter being considered is (a) the security of the property of the municipality or local board; (b) personal matters about an identifiable individual, including municipal or local board employees; (c) a proposed or pending acquisition or disposition of land by the municipality or local board; (d) labour relations or employee negotiations; (e) litigation or potential litigation, including matters before administrative tribunals, affecting the municipality or local board; (f) advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose; (g) a matter in respect of which a council, board, committee or other body may hold a closed meeting under another Act.
The in-camera sessions held so far this year by Uxbridge council have more or less been confined to (b), (c) and (e) and I am not for one minute suggesting anything untoward is taking place in these meetings. But is Uxbridge involved in so many litigations, so many land disposals and so many personal matters that they require 20 secret meetings?
It seems to me that by making it harder for people to follow what's going on at council, the incumbents are not even paying lip service to council accessibility.
Tell me, am I wrong?
