Four members of the public spoke as Delegations on Thursday, August 25 against proposed Niagara Region Procedural Bylaw changes which would allow staff to preclude members of the public.
The proposed delegation rules were expected to be ratified at the August 25 meeting but the meeting ran long and the Bylaw amendment was to the next council meeting on Sept 22–where it could again hear delegates, be debated, be amended, and be struck down.
The motion to refer to the next meeting was made by councillor Gibson who said “I think that needs further consultation and debate, and I don’t know if we can get that done tonight. Or this morning”, as the meeting neared midnight. At the prior meeting Gibson had also sought to refer the bylaw back to committee, but proposed to do so at a time when it was out of order.
The issue was first raised as a concern on July 21 by councillor Mike Britton, provoking debate in council. It was soon after learned that the Bylaw changes would not be ratified until the following meeting and that council could reject them, and convincing council to reconsider the new rules was the goal of the delegations.
Among the delegates was this author, Sandor Ligetfalvy. Other delegates were also Barbara Scollick, Ed Smith, and Danielle Romanuk. Questions were asked by Huson, Senzik, Easton, and Foster. In total, the delegations, with questions, occupied about 55 minutes of council time.
Context confirmed: the deleted delegation is relevant
As noted in a prior report, Councillor Foster had asked about the rules for delegations at the Dec 7, 2021 meeting where the delegate was subsequently deleted from the agenda. At council this week, Foster made comments which confirmed that the deleted delegation is relevant to the new policy.
there was one [delegation] that it was decided upon that they would not be allowed to present and that was at a public health meeting earlier this year.. So, to Mr. Smith, assume that this rule comes into play, hypothetically this comes into play this evening, is there a methodology in and around procedure that you would think is appropriate?
In other words, to be open and transparent, if a decision such as that is being made, I would think that should be well documented within our agenda coming forward for that particular evening, to make sure that the public knows and as well the committee knows that a decision was being made on a delegate. What’s your thoughts on something like that?
Foster
Delegate Ed smith replied: “I think one of the previous presenters touched on this. The, I’ll say ‘courage’, it takes, to citizens to step in to this arena — I think somebody smart said once, I think the biggest fear humans have is public speaking.
To put something on an agenda and say ‘Citizen X was prevented from speaking because of the following…’ is almost opening them to, I don’t know if ‘ridicule’ is the word, but it certainly is going to be a barrier anybody wanting to speak, when they know that they have to be vetted first, and if they don’t pass the vetting, it’s going to be published on an agenda, that ‘so and so was not allowed to speak because we passed judgement’, it’s a prejudice that will be a barrier to public participation in our democratic system,” said Smith.
“Thank you very much for that, actually, that’s a very valid point.”
“That’s a very good point”, Foster to delegate
New comments provided by Clerk
See also:
By-law change that could potentially limit citizens’ ability to address regional council goes unratified, for now (Niagara Independent, August 30)
