Council Shows That it is Seriously Divided and Cannot Conduct the Business of the City and be civil at the same time.

By Pepper Parr

June 12th, 2026

BURLINGTON, ON

It was a surprise to many when Councillor Lisa Kearns walked out of a Council meeting saying she could not do her job if the Chair would not hear a motion to defer an item to a meeting of Council on the 23rd.

Late Thursday afternoon Kearns issued the following statement.

Lisa Kearns Ward 2 Councillor and candidate for the office of Mayor.

“Today, I excused myself from the June Committee of the Whole meeting following two agenda items affecting Ward 2 Residents being Closed for Debate.

“I asserted that I could not dispose of my obligation to represent the community on items related to Cricket at Central Park and Options to Restrict Construction  without the procedural opportunity to state my voting rationale and complete my questions. Since this pattern emerged, I silently exited the Council Chambers for the balance of Committee and will resume with my work on behalf of the constituents I serve at Council on June 23rd, 2026.

What was that all about?

It was really, really messy – the worst I have ever seen at a Council meeting.

Lisa Kearns had asked if an agenda item (cricket pitches) could be referred to council, when “I will have an explanation when that’s up on the board.”

Chair Stolte: Sorry, we have an amendment on the floor to refer the Downtown Parking Market Feasibility Analysis Report to the June 23, 2026 meeting of Council. Councillor Nison, would you like to speak to your amendment?

Councillor Nisan: I think Councilor Kearns is no longer here.

Councillor Nisan: I think Councilor Kearns is no longer here, and I think she’s been the primary proponent of this issue. I would like to have a full debate with as many members present as possible.  I believe she has been bullied out of this chamber, so I think that we should have a chance to cool off and actually be able to hear from her.

I am asking you to rule  on my own point of privilege. The only person who would be seen as bullying Councillor Kearns out of the chamber would be the chair, and I think that the chair was given the option to address the point of privilege in an appropriate way.

Chair Stolte: I would request that you retract that statement, Councillor

Nisan: Thank you, Chair. I will certainly not retract that statement.

Chair of the Standing Committee Shawna Stolte.

Chair Stolte: Okay. Well, I will certainly not support referring this to council myself, given the fact that Councilor Kearns certainly has the option to be here to discuss this matter if it’s important to her and her ward. If she’s chosen to leave, that’s her prerogative.

Nisan: Point of order.  Could the clerk read out the rules around a point of privilege.  There’s nothing specifically to the chair calling a point of privilege. If you could just confirm that a chair can raise a point of privilege and rule on it.

Clerk:  Perhaps it’s a point of order where that’s the case, but there is nothing in the procedure by law that says that they can’t.

Chair Stolte: Okay. All right. Thank you. I believe that the chair is a member of committee, so I don’t see why the chair would be restricted from that.   Moving forward. Any comments or questions to the amendment on the floor?

Mayor Mead Ward:  Thank you. I also will not be supporting the referral, and certainly not for the alleged reasons that have been put on the floor. This, and I will say that I support the chair’s ruling. There is option within the procedure by law. If anyone wishes to challenge the chair, they can put a challenge on the floor, and the council can vote on it. That wasn’t done, and that hasn’t been done. We have an obligation as a council to conduct ourselves in a professional and businesslike manner, which means that we read the materials in advance, we ask as many questions of staff as we can, we respect each other enough that if we have those questions or proposed amendments, that we try to circulate those in advance.

Marianne Meed Ward, a two term Mayor is seeking a third term. Two members of Council, Rory Nisan and Lisa Kearns are candidates for the office of Mayor.

A number of the items, including those that caused the two votes to shut the debate down, were part of your package that was available over 10 days ago, and there has been no communication with any of the movers that I’m aware of to to deal with these matters and bring forward something in a professional and respectful way that respects the time of everyone we have staff around this this horseshoe that don’t need to be part of every single conversation that that some wish to have, we are wasting their time and grinding through the through the agenda in a way that I feel is disrespectful to all of us, and that is not a reflection of the kind of high quality stability that we want to have around these chambers, and what we’ve started to see is chaos unfolding. That is not the fault of the chair.

Nisan: It is.. it is.  The comments are not related.

Chair Stolte: I believe they are. They go directly to why I won’t support the referral. Nobody has bullied anyone out of this chamber. If somebody wishes not to participate in discussion because it doesn’t go the way they wish it will, that is their choice. They are letting down their constituents and they’re letting down this council and have an obligation to be here. We didn’t get any regrets when we moved this item and the entire rest of the agenda to today’s proceedings, and we have been in council and committee meetings, committee meetings now for two and a half days, the longest ever that we’ve had, because we are grinding on these issues. We owe ourselves better respect and better professionalism? We owe our staff better professionalism. The referral actually was in response to a motion I brought, and I am quite comfortable that the voice of business has been heard. I have been speaking with the BIA; they’re very happy with this. They want us actually to get on with it. So that’s what we’re going to do today.

Chair Stolte:  Any other questions or comments to the referral amendment that’s on the floor? I’m going to take a second to comment and just add to what the mayor has stated about the reason given for the request for the referral. Since Tuesday, I’ve had numerous staff and residents reach out to me to say that this point in time council is acting like a class of kindergartners, that is very embarrassing. So, to that end, I do believe we also should be conducting ourselves in a much more professional manner, and I will not be supporting any referral for this, and I will consider a second question or comment from Councilor Nissan.

Rory Nisan: Ward 3 Councillor and candidate for the office of Mayor.

Nisan:  I would agree with those residents’ statements. It’s a little harder to ascribe who’s to blame for that.  Getting back to the possible to the referral motion. I think council has always improved by having more voices at the table. I think that the debate today has devolved and is no longer serving our primary purpose here.

So I think it would be wise, and we would have a better, if we refer this to council or to a future committee meeting, and when it comes to the question of bringing motions ahead of time. That argument is terrifically weak and undemocratic.

Chair Stolte:   Any more comments or questions on the floor to the referral motion on the screen in front of us? Seeing none, I’m going to call the vote. All those in favor of referring the downtown parking market feasibility analysis to the June 23 26 council meeting. All those in favor?

Any opposed? And that does not carry.

Council now moved on to another issue: Downtown parking and the need for additional space.  This took place while the most informed member of Council on downtown parking matters was not in the room.

Councillor Nisan:  My main question is, there’s a cost estimate here of 150 to $300,000 If I recall correctly. I would just like to ask if it’s a wide range, and maybe you could explain that range, and I’ll probably have follow-up questions.

Realize that Councillor Kearns is no longer in Council Chamber.  The subject now is downtown parking.  Ward 2 has the most serious parking problems; Kearns also sits on the parking committee.

They return on the 23rd – will they have learned to get out of the sandbox where children play and behave as responsible members of a Council that will face the voters in just over five months?