After Saanich adopted a new voting dashboard to enhance public transparency, one councillor is pushing for more measures to continue this progress.
Coun. Nathalie Chambers proposed two motions including one to publish video recordings of town hall meetings and another to explore posting Freedom of Information (FOI) requests on the district’s website.
Designed to promote public participation in a more relaxed setting, the municipality’s first-ever town hall meeting was held last October. This event allowed Saanich residents to speak their minds, share opinions, and air their grievances on hot-button issues before council in a new format, off the record.
After being approached by several citizens sharing their interest in having the town hall meetings recorded and posted, Chambers argued this would promote public participation.
“It's a really important time in the world to provide transparency, and it's an invitation for public participation,” she said. “That is why I ran as a councillor; for civic engagement and the legacy of Saanich.”
Coun. Colin Plant supported Chambers’ motion, highlighting the event’s success as a key factor. However, as he made his plea, Plant asked staff if this would incur any additional costs or logistical challenges for the district.
Because the semi-annual meetings are held at various venues across Saanich, the municipality currently doesn’t have webcasting capabilities, noted Angila Bains, director of legislative and protective services.
She added that recording a meeting could cost up to $8,000, which includes fees for renting the venue, paying for staff, and providing the necessary equipment to record the meeting. Bains added that these potential extra costs were not accounted for.
Not opposed to the idea, Mayor Dean Murdock referred the motion to a one-time resource request to provide funding for this unbudgeted event.
Coun. Zac de Vries, while ultimately supporting the referral, voiced his partial opposition to Chambers' proposition. He argued that recording the town hall meetings would defeat their initial purpose, which aimed to provide an informal setting for residents to freely share their thoughts, opinions, and concerns without being constrained by a specific council meeting agenda.
“We saw that it invited a wider range of people than we would see at council typically and I think that was a very positive thing,” said de Vries.
Carefully supportive of Chambers' motion, Coun. Karen Harper believes that council should proceed by “taking more baby steps,” to make sure they aren’t faced by any unintended consequences, whether it is financial, logistical, or other unforeseen challenges.
“I'm actually quite torn on where to go,” said Harper. “Not because I disagree in principle, but I don't want us to really create any kind of quagmires that we'll have trouble extricating ourselves from as we move forward to that better place to make sure.”
After council unanimously referred the motion for a one-time resource request, Chambers presented her second proposal, which she argued could save money and promote transparency.
“Since staff is already doing this work, I thought it would just be easier to post on the website so that other Saanich residents who require the same FOI don't have to pay for this,” she said.
Plant expressed his support for the motion, although he noted it wasn’t an urgent matter.
“We might want to forward it to the next strategic plan as something we introduce for the next term,” said Plant. “I have no problem with FOIs being shared, but I'm just not sure this reaches the threshold of spending money on it at this time and spending a significant amount of staff time on it.”
Harper, who had previously been responsible for producing FOIs, spoke about the painstaking process involved in assembling these documents and expressed mixed feelings about the motion. While the cost of an FOI can add up, it only covers a fraction of the work required from staff to produce these documents.
“There's a reason why costs are up there,” said Harper. “It’s not that simple as many people think… It's actually quite a complex thing.”
She also pointed out the challenge of balancing the right for the public to access information with the need to protect the privacy of individuals. Harper cautioned that posting FOIs on the district’s website could potentially lead to legal challenges.
Coun. Mena Westhaver also opposed the motion.
“We don't have the capacity to do it,” she said. “I think we would just be opening up a huge can of worms that's not necessary.”
Considering the complexity and onerous nature of the process, along with the district’s lack of resources and staffing, Murdock chose not to support Chambers’ motion.
“This one's gotten too rich for me,” said Murdock. “I can't support asking staff to spend this kind of time and energy on reporting back to council. It sounds like this is a direction that, through administrative processes and regulatory changes, staff are already moving in a proactive disclosure direction where that's permissible, so I don't think it's up to council to provide that direction.”
The motion was defeated, with Murdock and Couns. Susan Brice, Judy Brownoff, Westhaver and Harper opposed.
