A move to impose new limits on delegations before City Council meetings was rejected Tuesday.
Council returned from the summer break for a meeting of its Committee of the Whole and the first hot topic they dealt with was a recommendation from the city clerk’s office that would limit how often people could delegate before council.
The changes were intended to streamline and shorten council meetings.
But some councillors and members of the public felt the proposed changes infringed on their democratic rights.
The clerk proposed changes to the procedural bylaw that would prevent delegates from delegating at both Committee of the Whole and City Council meetings unless new information was provided following the Committee of the Whole meeting.
Another recommendation called for hard end times to meetings: 11:59 p.m. for council meetings (which start at 6 p.m.) and 9:30 p.m. for Committee of the Whole meetings (which start at 2 p.m.).
But at the end of the day council only accepted some minor administrative amendments, voting down changes to delegations and meeting time rules.
The clerk’s recommendations stemmed from a survey of councillors done by the clerk’s office, but only five of 13 members of council responded to the survey.
Coun. Mike Salisbury asked if it was delegates that cause long meetings or council itself.
“The issue often lies with how we perform our job rather than the delegates,” Salisbury said.
O’Brien said “we do not get a large number of delegates except when there are significant matters are on the agenda.”
Some hot topic items have seen over 30 delegates speak at Committee of the Whole, then again on the same topic at City Council.
Coun. James Gordon asked how you can determine if a delegate is repeating themselves or addressing a new element of the same information.
Coun. June Hofland said that decorum and dignified behaviour from council will lead to better decorum from the public.
“None of us are comfortable with limiting delegations, limiting discourse, limiting democracy,” said Coun. Leanne Piper.
One delegates at Tuesday’s meeting said the recommendations to limit delegates were anti-democratic.
“This is an affront to public democracy,” said frequent delegate Susan Watson.
Watson also criticized the fact the issue was even on the council’s agenda, given that a similar move was shot down by council a few years ago.
“Where was the mandate to reopen? As far as I can ascertain, there wasn’t any,” Watson said.
Both she and another delegate, Ron East, were critical of a lack of public engagement prior to a recommendation coming before council.
“The public has not been consulted at all,” East said.
