by Olivia Rutt
ERIN – Erin council has done away with public question periods during its regular council meetings – for now.
In a motion brought forward on March 1 by Mayor Allan Alls, council decided in a 4-1 vote to suspend public question period “for this meeting and until further notice” and to direct the clerk to report back on options for public forums.
The public question period allowed members of the public to ask council or staff a question about any topic. Council approved the question period at its Sept. 15 council meeting and the first public question came at its meeting on Oct. 6.
Councillor Matt Sammut, who opposed Alls’ motion last week, said he was surprised by the proposal.
“I didn’t know this was coming, now that it’s brought forward, I vehemently disagree with it,” Sammut said.
“I think we just put it in place fairly recently; not to give a process like this a chance is wrong, it takes time to build momentum, it’s opening a line with the community and that’s what we’re representing to do.”
Alls explained that after listening to Fred Dean, a municipal expert and lawyer at the recent Ontario Good Roads Association and Rural Ontario Municipal Association Conference in Toronto, he wanted to improve the process.
“(Dean’s) statement is that the public are here to observe a council meeting, not to participate in it,” said Alls.
“He said ‘once you do what you are doing with the question period, (while) not illegal, it is outside what the Municipal Act contemplates.’”
Sammut was still concerned the move would put a permanent end to the question period.
“Once you stop it, I think there’s a very good chance you’ll never start again,” he said.
He added, “I’m surprised that politicians are afraid to hear from the public. There should be no fear. I know they challenge us, but we’re in the hot seats, it’s just part of our life and running for election.”
Councillor Jeff Duncan was concerned with the process of eliminating the question period.
“Wouldn’t this have been a notice of motion to come to council to change the rules of procedure?” he asked.
However, clerk Dina Lundy clarified, “It’s a motion that the mayor has brought forward under public question period and the motion, if you want to read it again, doesn’t say removing it, it says suspending it until the report is brought back.”
Councillor Rob Smith said he wants to see the question period revamped because there are still many inquiries from the public on it.
“It seems to me that this process isn’t working because there seems to be questions on how the procedures go, so in my mind quite frankly, this isn’t about getting rid of it, this is about revamping the rules,” Smith said.
Some members of the public in the audience did not appear pleased with council’s discussion on suspending the question period, including resident Anna Spiteri.
However, Smith didn’t agree with that disdain.
“You can shake your head all you want Anna, quite frankly it’s disrespectful for everybody sitting here and you get sick and tired of people shaking your heads at you too … really it’s going back to get cleaned up, nobody’s saying it’s getting scrapped,” he said.
Both Duncan and councillor John Brennan and asked for council to consider a better way to answer questions posed at meetings. Both thought the current process of answering questions at a later date and to only the person who asked the question needed to change.
Duncan wanted “the answers (to) be on the agenda for everybody to see.”
Sammut suggested having a quarterly forum for people to ask questions and asked that councillors be able to speak with and respond to the inquirer.
Council passed the motion to suspend the public question period is expecting a report at a future council meeting.
