Open and Transparent?

Early Wednesday morning, city staff and London Police Service moved into Victoria Park and dismantled tents and other structures that belonged to participants in the local occupy movement.  While many others have talked about the legitimacy and whether this action was right or wrong, I feel a far more disturbing action happened several hours earlier on Tuesday night.

Council met in camera to discuss “a legal matter pertaining to advice re the occupy movement”  During this meeting a vote was taken to have the park cleared. We don’t know the result of this vote as it was done in-camera. We do know raised voices were heard from outside council chambers and Mayor Fontana did say he had overwhelming support but not unanimous.

The purpose of in-camera meetings are described in the municipal act quite clearly.

A 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. 2001, c. 25, s. 239 (2).

In this situation council may have had this meeting behind close doors without a valid reason. The only exception I can see this in-camera meeting a shred of validity is section F. As I have stated before transparency is very important, if you are not willing to go on the record for a vote because you feel it will be not popular then don’t run for office.

Most intelligent voters realize they will not agree with a politician on every issue, but most people will have far more respect for someone who is honest and transparent. I will respect someone who is more open who I don’t agree with on some issues far more then someone who bends the rules to only release ‘good’ news. This is why some people are puzzled when I say I have the respect of some politicians that I don’t agree with most of the time.

As Patrick Maloney pointed out in his London Free Press article, Council could be opening themselves to a legal can or worms. In 2007 the Supreme Court of Canada warned London that municipal affairs can not be done in secret. That particular adventure cost the city $300,000 in legal fees.

The Ontario Ombudsman’s office has received two formal complaints about this ‘secret’ meeting so it will be interesting to see what happens with this going forward.

I would love to see a motion to release the minutes of this meeting and the voting results. Not to play the blame game but for the nature of open and transparent government. However that would involve a 2/3 majority to achieve, which would not be that likely given that some on Council don’t want the public to know how they voted. Considering there was a push for Citizen engagement by the city recently, this is very disappointing

Update: Several people have commented that section a could also apply in this instance.  That is true but IMHO still a stretch and doesn’t address my original issue of an unnecessary secret vote.