The Erosion of Democracy and Discourse
A Guest Newsletter from a Reader
Editor’s Note: The is a submission from a subscriber that we received following a callout seeking guest editorials. The author has asked to remain anonymous and, after confirming their actual identity on our own, we have respected that request.
If you would like to submit an editorial on a topic related to municipal politics in Victoria, BC you can email The Municipal Fly.
We are witnessing the erosion of public political discourse and democracy as evidenced locally in Victoria and the CRD. With only 37% participation, the lowest voter turnout on record, Victoria’s city council is dominated by a group of councillors and mayor who call themselves progressive. Yet their policies and conduct belie that label. After barely warming their seats, they rushed to adopt the Missing Middle Housing Initiative (MMHI). This is a controversial policy that at least half of Victoria was opposed to because it created large unaffordable structures in every neighbourhood and removed any public or even future council input. The city’s own commissioned financial study (the Coriolis report) warned that MMHI was barely financially viable and wouldn’t produce affordable housing. BC’s largest union the BC General Employees’ Union (BCGEU) and many experts warned that in fact MMHI would worsen affordability through land lift. Many councillors didn’t understand it and some clearly never read it. But they proclaimed that they “were elected to take action on housing,” refused to conduct any further public participation and rushed to adopt it. Currently after its enactment those same councillors are complaining that the MMHI didn’t go far enough because no applications to utilize it have come forward.
Driven by ideology this council has approved any new development proposal even those without any parking or that are recommended to be declined by staff as flawed, curtailed the police budget, and denied that public safety downtown or adjacent to supportive housing is an issue although a few of them had secret statistics from the Victoria Police Department showing the opposite. And just to deflect or thumb their noses at the public, they plan to insert a splash pad in the middle of centennial square downtown. On social media some councillors, aggressively ridicule and gaslight the public’s concerns on these and other issues.
As if in keeping with this theme, last week Victoria council voted to curtail the “inconvenient” public input through a long sacred means: allowing the public to address council on any issue for 5 minutes twice a month.
Councillor Matt Dell complained that this was only a part time job and he had little time to read emails and hear from people. “We are already expected to read a lot of stuff.” But he said “we need to hear from people who don’t have time to come to chambers. Maybe setup at playgrounds and talk to young families and even their kids. “Even my 6 and 10-year-old kids have a vision for this city.”
Councillor Jeremy Caradonna said “three minutes is enough time to get a point across” and “we want to hear from different people and on a diverse range of topics not the same topics and same people and this supports good democratic practice and cleans up our procedure in accordance with the Local Governance Report.” Given that the Local Governance Report expressed an overwhelming dissatisfaction with the previous council’s governance and lack of transparency, it’s hard to reconcile Caradonna’s comments. Furthermore, given this council’s performance to date, especially with reference to the withholding of the police statistics above mentioned, transparency is clearly still a dominant issue. Also, most of them, let alone the inexperienced average citizen, would struggle to make any point in 3 minutes.
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Councillor Susan Kim did not support the changes because she was concerned about this type of limitation and the message it sends to the public. She explained that she has difficulty keeping up with emails in her in box and closed many of her social media accounts.
Councillors Stephen Hammond, Chris Coleman, and Marg Gardiner opposed the changes because of the limitation in time and number of speakers as it would restrict the voice of speakers. Gardiner emphasized that very important information can come to council through these addresses. She referred to a recent address by a long-term downtown resident about how lack of parking creates a tremendous hardship on persons with disabilities. Given this council’s aversion to the provision of parking in any new development, it was important for them to hear the consequences of such all or nothing ideology.
Councillor Dave Thompson in support of these restrictions, didn’t want to hear from the “usual suspects.” Yet this proposed change will not restrict the conduct of members of Homes For Living an aggressive pro-developer lobby group which promoted him and his other “progressive” teammates, who routinely stack development public hearings making identical submissions read from pre-prepared developer sponsored talking points.
Councillor Krista Laughton also supported the changes tying the vote. The mayor broke the tie to put the final nail in the coffin stating that there are other means for the public to engage with them and the public expects them to do other more important work. But what could be more important than actually hearing from the public? The result is that from now on, only 6 people are permitted to speak at only 2 council meetings per month. They are limited to 3 minutes each and can only speak once every 3 months on a first come first served basis. This issue is being watched and is trending across the CRD with Langford council proposing to restrict the public’s ability to photograph or record council meetings1.
At a time when politics is already divisive, with special interest groups like Homes For Living dominating policy decisions and its members harassing who they consider opponents, it is a dangerous precedent for local governments to curtail public engagement in the name of convenience. This is a slippery slope and history has demonstrated that totalitarianism results from making governments run more efficiently at the expense of democracy. We should all be very worried.
The proposal in Langford to limit photography/videography was debated and amendment on July 24 and passed without restrictions on photography/videography during meetings after this newsletter was written.