Who benefits from the current practice of hybrid meetings of Council ? Not the public.

By Pepper Parr

July 5th, 2023

BURLINGTON, ON

Andrew Coyne, a respected CBC panellist and the writer of a regular column in the National Post asks the question:

Whose Parliament is it anyway?”

In a recent opinion piece in the Globe and Mail Coyne claims “The government’s move to make hybrid Parliament permanent will only hasten its decline.”

That is pretty much what is happening to Burlington’s City Council. We will return to that point.

Andrew Coyne, CBC At Issue panellist, National Post columnist ad frequent contributor to the Globe and Mail.

Coyne adds: “If, as the government argues, letting MP’s phone it in some of the time would lead to improvements in MP’s mental health and other good things, how much more would this be true if they did so all the time?”

“Indeed it’s a wonder we ever insisted they meet in the first place. Remote voting has been possible since the telegraph. What’s the big deal about siting them all together in the same room?

“And yet every legislature in the world does. Somehow it was universally agreed that the people’s representative physically assemble in a large, ornately decorated chamber, and do most of their business there.”

During the pandemic hybrid was a necessity but virtually all have reverted to meeting in person.

“Maybe it has something to do with why trials are held in person – defendant and plaintiff, accuser and accused, forced to confront each other in the same courtroom. Or why the most effective means of protesting some injustice, to this day, is to gather a lot of people in one place, a right so fundamental it is protected in the Constitution.

“The presence of the 338 MP’s sitting in their seats is hugely symbolic, not only for the onlookers but for the participants as well. It signals something important is going on.

Once the hybrid meeting practice is entrenched, depend on it, more and more MP’s will take advantage of it.”

Is that what we see happening in Burlington?

Burlington City Council in a hybrid mode. Can you tell which members are in their living room and which members are in the Council Chamber?

We have members who don’t understand the decorum of a Commons, a Legislature or a City Council Chamber – wearing a shirt – and no jacket. Some eat their lunch at their working space.

There have been a number of occasions when there is barely a quorum; happens easily with a Council of just seven members.

At times there are good reasons for a council member to be away – but far too often there are members who prefer to work from a home office. When there are just five members taking part in the discussion the interaction is limited – the opportunity to pick up on a comment another Council member made or make your disagreement known is not the same when you aren’t in the room.

Hybrid meetings that aren’t necessary but convenient for the member of Council is not what a public democratic process is all about.

Council is currently discussing a redevelopment of Civic Square so that it can be used by the public; a place to gather; a place to celebrate but not apparently a place where you spend time in the Council Chamber debating a budget that is going to result in hard earned money coming out of the pockets of the people who put the Council members in the seats they hold.

Someone, a citizens group ideally, should take the members of this Council to task and demand that they show up for work.

We will come to deeply regret letting this Council take away the symbolic importance of all members of Council meeting to debate the issues.

Things are even worse at the Regional level – why drive to Oakville for a two hour meeting when you can cover it all from home