Victoria County restoring some accountability by reinstating public Q&As: councillor

Victoria County council is restoring public question-and-answer sessions after council meetings.

In January, councillors decided to do away with them. They also stopped allowing comments on the county Facebook page and ended the livestreaming of committee meetings, which Coun. Fraser Patterson said makes the county less transparent and less accountable to the public.

At Monday's council meeting in Baddeck, Patterson tried to have all three decisions reversed, but was only successful on the Q&A sessions.

"We've had this for 20-some years," said the longtime councillor. "We have never really had major incidents. Sometimes the discussion can get a little heated, but that's part of the process. That's part of democracy."

Patterson said he's heard from some unhappy residents and of the three council decisions, the ability for residents to question councillors is probably the most important one.

Councillors voted unanimously to rescind their decision on that, but couldn't agree on what form the sessions should take.

Several suggested questions should only be permitted on topics that came up at that day's council meeting and that time limits should be enforced.

Coun. Donna Matheson-LeFort said no one was trying to stifle free speech, but the format needed to be reasonable.

Warden Jackie Organ said it made sense to bring back the Q&As.

"If that's what the people all want and they've said it loud and clear, we'll bring it back [in] some kind of fashion," she said.

"Not sure what that's going to look like, but we'll be talking about that in the future."

Organ said the topic will come back to the committee of the whole for further discussion.

Meanwhile, Patterson also made motions to reverse the decisions on Facebook comments and livestreaming committee meetings, but no other councillor would second those motions, so they did not get debated.

Patterson said both options would allow more residents to participate in county decisions.

He said with a large, sprawling county, it's important to give young people who use the internet for many activities and people with accessibility challenges a way to easily connect on public matters.

Meetings are held at the municipal office in Baddeck in central Cape Breton, but the county runs north to the tip of the Island.

'You can never be too transparent'

"I don't think we gave it a fair chance before," Patterson said. "We only had one livestreaming of the committee-of-the-whole meeting," Patterson said.

"You can never have too much information and you can never be too transparent. Personally, I thought it would have added to the transparency, but council made a decision and I'll abide by that."

Organ said council meetings are livestreamed, so it's not necessary to broadcast committee meetings, where topics are discussed but no decisions are finalized.

"Nothing is being hid," she said. "Nothing can be passed in the committee of the whole. It all has to be passed at a council meeting, so everything is on record and it's livestreamed then."

'Facebook page not for comments'

Organ said lately, no one has been complaining to her about transparency.

She said allowing comments on social media isn't necessary

"Our Facebook page is for information only. It's not for comments. If you have a comment or inquiry, please contact your councillor or our [chief administrative officer] or myself personally."

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