Disruption has made some huge changes in the way business is done in many sectors: might that ever include the city of Burlington?

By Pepper Parr

August 6^th, 2025

BURLINGTON, ON

Disruption is not something new that began around 2000.  It is an elemental part of every economy – defined as significant changes in the economic environment that can lead to instability, unemployment, or shifts in industry.

You could sell anything anywhere: The service killed the very profitable classified advertising section in just about all the daily newspapers.

We are just experiencing this disruption much more frequently.  When Craigslist was introduced, it resulted in the end of classified advertising in newspapers which eventually led to the end of thousands of daily newspapers and the introduction of online newspapers; the Gazette was the first to appear in Burlington.

Uber meant almost the end of traditional taxi service.   There are dozens of other examples.

Some levels of society don’t lend themselves to any disruption all that easily.

Public education is one example.  Teacher unions have a huge impact on the kind of changes that get made.  One of the positive things that came out of the 2020 pandemic was that teachers were forced to use digital applications to teach students virtually when classrooms were closed.  There are those that think we no longer need teachers; that computer applications can do it all.  Maybe.  The need to have one-on-one interactions and teachers at the head of a classroom answering questions is going to be hard to do away with.

But what about the municipal sector? Is there room for major disruption?

The difficulty at the municipal level is not so much the unions but the grip that the municipal mindset and culture, that is deeply ingrained, has on what gets done.  And things don’t happen all that quickly in the municipal sector.  Add to all that the organizational structure with elected people at the very top. Burlington has a very small city council given the size of the city.  The current council has been in for two terms and the residents could end up with the same seven; less than 30% of the voters bother to show up.

Where can disruption take place?

Some municipalities use a Reference Panels and Citizens’ Assemblies approach to making decisions.  A firm is brought in to create a panel that is representative of the makeup of the community with balance including gender, income, education age.  Issues are put before this panel jury and they come up with a recommendation that a city council is expected to adhere to or give really good reasons for not following the recommendation.

The Halton Regional government has used MASSlb very effectively.  Burlington chose not to use any outside help and instead chose to use the IAP2 model. And look where that got us.

It was the Promise to the Public section that grates on the minds of many people.

There will be more on this.  Let’s see how the Gazette readership responds.