[0:01] thanks just for the this session is
going to be on the city's website so it
[0:05] was useful to have this actually
recorded so those people who couldn't be
[0:08] in attendance tonight would still have
an opportunity of seeing what was going
[0:12] on
so what a city can and can't do this is
[0:14] part one of a four-part series uh before
we get going into earnest i know that
[0:19] counselor vasilakos is here and she was
just going to provide a little bit of
[0:22] context to the sessions and to this one
in particular tonight potentially
[0:27] counselor
good evening everyone i'm just on the
[0:31] behalf of uh mayor mathison and all of
city council i just want to welcome
[0:35] everyone to
to these sessions and um
[0:39] and hope that they are actually
useful and informative and engaging
[0:45] and i i think sort of some context for
me would be when i first ran for council
[0:50] i ran
for what i thought council did and i had
[0:53] some of it right and i had
some of it wrong but what i really
[0:58] didn't understand is how much we
couldn't do or couldn't control or
[1:01] wasn't within our purview and and the
realization that the public also didn't
[1:07] have a really strong sense of that and
so i i think i think this is a really
[1:11] great opportunity to have a review of
that and and and understand what we do
[1:16] and i i just one little anecdote of my
time on council it says who's driving
[1:21] the greater is ian's book
and
[1:24] um i think it's really interesting
because sometimes i'll get a phone call
[1:26] from someone in the public then they
think that i am in the office every day
[1:30] running the public works department
because i'm chair of infrastructure
[1:33] transportation and safety and little do
they know that i'm allowed in the public
[1:37] works yard building once a year
at christmas when they're having pizza
[1:42] and there's caution tape up and the
counselors are not allowed anywhere near
[1:46] the graders and so uh you know sort of
sort of this sort of conversation around
[1:52] who's driving the greater is i think a a
really good one because not only is
[1:57] who's driving it who's paying for it who
decide what kind of grader we want and
[2:01] what kind of work is the greater going
to do for you are all the kinds of
[2:05] things that i hope that this session
brings and um so thank you to ian and
[2:09] thank you to everyone who came tonight
and i hope you have a really great
[2:13] session in the next sessions as well
thanks counselor well i will get to the
[2:18] greater bit kind of a little bit in
earnest my style is trying to is
[2:23] interactive so
certainly we'll talk a little bit about
[2:26] this this of course as the counselor
um mentioned is part one of a four-part
[2:32] series and kudos to the city of
stratford for doing this the i haven't
[2:36] have run across an occurrence before of
a city
[2:40] of a city that is
willing to do this kind of information
[2:45] or education
globally for the public sometimes this
[2:49] runs it concurrently to things like
elections
[2:51] but sometimes it's just
it's just almost uh run there's an
[2:57] assumption if you like that people know
what cities do or what cities can't do
[3:00] and while i say cities i think we're
going to use the term we may use the
[3:03] term cities but it's more general in
terms of different types of local
[3:07] governments
so when mayor mathis and i started
[3:10] having a conversation about this
probably three four or five months ago
[3:15] and lauren mckinnon was part of that
conversation as well through wise
[3:18] communities
the idea came about
[3:21] frost for somebody who was independent
from the city who has done some work in
[3:26] a lot of work in this sphere in canada
to just provide a little bit of an
[3:30] overview respond to some questions if
there are some
[3:33] and see where that gets us in terms of
public education associated with local
[3:37] government in the canadian context in
ontario specifically
[3:40] so we broke it down into four sessions
the first one today is essentially just
[3:44] the role of local government in the
lives of the people who live in the
[3:47] community
the next one in a couple of weeks is
[3:50] role clarity so we'll speak specifically
at that time to the role of council the
[3:56] role of individual members of council
the role of the mayor administration and
[4:00] then management and service delivery as
well
[4:02] kind of who's responsible for what so
why it is that councillor vasilakos
[4:06] isn't allowed to drive the greater even
if she really wants to
[4:09] the third session will be on local
engagement uh communication and
[4:13] engagement we will touch on that a
little bit today as well but how the
[4:17] municipality interacts with the people
who live there is very important so we
[4:22] will spend a couple hours or one of our
sessions talking about that
[4:26] and then finally the last session about
a month and a half or two months from
[4:29] now a month and a half i guess we'll be
dealing with public finance
[4:34] specifically the sources of revenue that
are available to a municipality uh the
[4:38] kohl's notes version is there aren't
very many if you compare it to other
[4:42] orders of government or even the united
states uh local government united states
[4:46] the other end is where does how does
money get spent in terms of budgeting
[4:51] we'll speak to that a little bit later
on today again just to give you a bit of
[4:54] an overview
so the there's a note here about
[4:58] questions and comments because this is
on zoom first of all it's
[5:02] i'm not sure if it's sub-optimal it's
the best plan b we've got other than
[5:06] gathering around the table and having a
great conversation so please do put your
[5:11] hand up um
i'm on a relatively small screen here so
[5:14] i may not see a whole lot if you just
want to interrupt it somewhere dropping
[5:18] is not a great idea if you would like to
interject at some point and just for
[5:21] make a comment or ask a question please
by all means do that put your comments
[5:26] and questions in the chat it pops up
here on my screen and maybe as we break
[5:29] from section to section we'll i'll stop
at that
[5:33] i will also suggest that the slides here
are available on the city's website so
[5:39] now or later if you haven't already got
them you're welcome to have a copy of
[5:43] them some people often ask for that so
they'll be available there or they are
[5:47] available there
[5:52] so with that in mind so because we are
in the online environment we recognize
[5:56] it's not ideal so i often use the term
of asking each other for a little bit of
[6:00] extra grace and patience
as we work through all of this together
[6:05] the nice thing about local government
perhaps of their orders of government
[6:08] and the way it interacts with their
citizens is that we don't all think
[6:11] alike
so there are different ideas and
[6:14] different opinions and that space
in many ways is where value lies if
[6:20] we're looking to change things from the
way they are to some ideal future state
[6:24] it's only by challenging the status quo
looking for innovation and accepting
[6:28] risk that that actually happens and the
same thing goes for tonight too so if
[6:31] there are a controversial ideas or
contested ideas
[6:35] please bring them out
however if i do put a caveat to that if
[6:40] there are inappropriate comments that
come out i'll ask that person to refrain
[6:45] and if they don't refrain we i have the
ability to remove people from the
[6:49] session so just note that up front and
finally you all know i think that the
[6:53] session is being recorded and it'll be
available on the city's website if you
[6:57] want to have a look at it a little bit
later so this is your time i am here to
[7:01] provide a little bit of context some
overview some information and perhaps
[7:06] answer some of your questions as well i
will say though that while i know a
[7:10] little bit about stratford and its
recent history and its long history as
[7:14] well for that matter i'm not an expert
on that i'm an expert if you like on
[7:18] local government in canada
i'd like this to be more of a seminar
[7:22] than a lecture so i'd like to know your
thoughts as well i learn from these in
[7:27] the same way that other people do as
well we use a term quite often called
[7:31] good governance or great governance and
my take on that is if you're looking for
[7:35] the ideal future state for a local
government in canada or how a council
[7:40] works or how a council interacts with
the people who live in a place there are
[7:44] lots of ways to do that there's some
ways to do it really badly but there are
[7:47] also quite a lot of ways to do it really
well and so it's those roots up the
[7:50] mountain that we're looking at
we know my as a bit of a pollyanna i
[7:55] think the people bring their best to
local government and probably to other
[7:59] orders of government too you all have
chosen to live in stratfor you've chosen
[8:03] to move there remain there there's got
to be a reason for that you likely
[8:07] believe that that's the best place to
live
[8:09] and you're right and you want each other
to be successful in order for council to
[8:13] be successful the citizens the
organizations the businesses who live in
[8:17] stratfor need to be successful too and
the opposite is also true for them to be
[8:22] successful the council needs to be
successful as well
[8:25] and the final comment kind of reiterates
something i made a little while ago
[8:28] about let's have some interesting
conversation this evening so if you want
[8:31] to disagree with opinions and
interpretations please do
[8:35] a bit about me uh my as i mentioned my
name's ian mccormick my contact
[8:39] information is at the bottom of every
page and i've done that specifically and
[8:43] and generally so that if you have
questions that come after the session
[8:47] you have every opportunity to write down
my email address look up my website and
[8:51] phone number and if you want to give me
a call tomorrow or next week have a
[8:54] question about something please do i
really this is my area of passion and i
[8:59] love talking about it and speaking to
people who are engaged around the
[9:03] country about it so please reach out
after the fact if you like as well my
[9:07] company strategic steps has offices in
alberta and saskatchewan we say we
[9:11] operate in that space between elected
and appointed and so that's when we
[9:15] that's how we talk about governance so
it's the interaction between the two as
[9:19] they try as they make their communities
the best that they can be
[9:22] in terms of the specific things that we
often do it oftentimes depends on
[9:26] election cycles
so if we were to look at just a
[9:30] four-year election cycle we often do
things like candidate workshops to as
[9:35] counselor vasilakko said help people
understand what the role of counselor is
[9:39] before they hand in all their nomination
forms and sign ups for sign up for the
[9:43] job potentially for the next four years
we do a lot of orientations following
[9:48] the election so we did a bunch in
saskatchewan last year because that was
[9:52] their election time we'll do a bunch in
alberta this year because it's their
[9:55] election time so it's just cyclical we
do a lot of strategic planning for
[9:58] municipalities we're off to
prince george bc next week to work with
[10:03] them and prince albert saskatchewan i
think the week after that so a lot of
[10:06] governance work there
if we do we do reviews of organizations
[10:11] or municipalities that aren't working
terribly well sometimes so a governance
[10:14] review or organizational review trying
to get the animal pointed in the right
[10:18] direction and if sometimes if there are
code of conduct reviews to be done
[10:22] across the country there are different
ways of dealing with council code of
[10:26] conduct complaints some like you have
specific people named to do that in
[10:32] other parts of the country they don't
even require code of conduct
[10:35] legislation or bylaws so it kind of runs
the full gamut
[10:38] i do quite a lot of speaking and writing
for the saskatchewan urban
[10:41] municipalities association i write a
column in all of their
[10:45] called governance voice i've done some
writing for municipal world which is
[10:49] canada's national magazine
the councillor referenced my book who's
[10:53] driving the greater which was published
last fall and it speaks to the
[10:56] difference between governance and
management or governance and
[10:59] administration
it's that's actually the link that uh i
[11:03] got involved with stratford from with
lorena and with the mayor having read it
[11:07] and then reaching out to me i also have
another book coming out shortly on the
[11:10] aptitudes of the best mayors i've
interviewed about a dozen mayors from
[11:14] across the country and actually one in
australia as well looking at the
[11:18] principles of what makes a good mayor
we're calling it the dna of great
[11:22] leaders at the moment so we're looking
at mayors and probably a plot well it
[11:25] will apply to other leaders as well in
terms of what i've seen is kind of the
[11:29] three ways that leadership works you
need to come into the position with
[11:33] personal aptitudes that make it
appropriate to you some people are good
[11:37] at this type of a role and for some
people it's the last thing they would
[11:40] ever want to do so they have those
personal attitudes coming in
[11:44] they're often community leaders from way
back when they were on the library board
[11:48] or a recreation board or
part of a church group or a cancer
[11:52] charity and have led the community for a
long time so that's when that's where
[11:56] they come in and finally there are some
technical pieces to this too to being a
[11:59] great leader
and those are the skills that you can
[12:02] learn
so you have those personal aptitudes you
[12:06] grow the community leadership and you
can develop governance skills so that's
[12:09] what's coming up
so we have nearly 40 people in here at
[12:13] the moment and i wondered about posing a
few questions right off the bat just
[12:17] looking at this if there would be two or
three people on each one of these who
[12:21] might be offer what you think the best
thing that the city does or provides for
[12:25] you and your family what would you
change potentially about how stratford
[12:28] works
and i've given you my two cents worth
[12:31] about what i think greater good
governance is and what does that mean to
[12:35] you
and just a more general question over
[12:37] the course of the four series four
recessions if you attend them all do you
[12:42] have some hopes that come out of that
so if i can't just start at the top and
[12:46] i can't see very many of you on my
screen is there anybody who would like
[12:50] to offer why what it is that makes
stratfor so great
[13:00] somebody must think it's pretty good
[13:09] well this could be a shot
please do lorena
[13:14] i mean for me i love the scale of the
the city and the diversity of it i'd
[13:19] love the diversity of the people
and the the businesses the enterprises
[13:24] that are here uh the physical the
physicality of the city is very very
[13:29] beautiful
and that goes back to the scale that you
[13:32] can really walk a lot of the city
and it's very uh accessible that way so
[13:39] for me um i grew up in a small community
in manitoba and this is this city
[13:44] actually reminds me of a lot of that
that it's a it's an intimate but it's a
[13:47] diverse city
thanks there's uh somebody in the chat
[13:52] who said that um the best service bar
known as the stratford public library
[13:56] the only service without extra user fees
so i i am a former library board chair
[14:02] and library trustee for 12 years myself
so i was in a public library so i would
[14:06] i would certainly echo ken's comments
there anybody else want to jump in here
[14:10] tori you're unmuted
[14:14] that's on purpose
[14:24] um
i'm j marie and um i think that there's
[14:29] lots of um
diversity and different interests and we
[14:34] have an awful lot of um
groups
[14:37] no matter what your interest is there's
going to be other people that have the
[14:40] same
and um
[14:42] so we have lots of of groups and they do
lots of things in the city
[14:47] thank you
anybody else
[14:50] yeah this is david niece
uh i
[14:54] i think most people would agree that the
quality of life here
[14:59] is very very high
because
[15:03] we have a small compact city
surrounded by a very
[15:09] intensive and successful agricultural
community
[15:15] and the city is very diverse in terms of
its economic makeup
[15:19] and
it offers a tremendous
[15:24] appeal to people who come from other
larger communities where the urban
[15:28] density is
much higher and uh
[15:32] where they feel that their uh
their needs are may be met but they're
[15:38] mad here in stratford in a way that is
a lot more accommodating
[15:43] and it's a very attractive place for
people to settle particularly in their
[15:48] retirement period
[15:52] thank you well i am uh i'm an apprentice
retiree myself i'm working hard towards
[15:57] getting there
is the is there anything anybody else
[16:01] wants to add there i'll just move on to
the next question
[16:04] jamie
[16:08] yes can you hear me i can hear you go
ahead
[16:11] okay yes i think stratford is uh is a
relatively very safe community for for
[16:17] people to live
um it does have that industry arts
[16:24] and uh culture
and the good mix of agriculture and with
[16:29] that and i think that gives it a very
healthy
[16:31] diverse economy but also a very diverse
culture and uh it does
[16:37] maintain somewhat of a small town feel i
like to i like to bike it's very easy
[16:42] to access most corners of the city
through uh through maine's other than a
[16:47] car right so it's pedestrian it's
relatively pedestrian bike friendly and
[16:52] it just it has a sense of scale
that feels very human as opposed to some
[16:58] of the larger cities when i go there
just the scale of it it seems to lose a
[17:02] little bit
[17:07] okay
thanks very much
[17:10] uh let's move on are there things that
you would change just a couple minutes
[17:13] on this i've got a note here just from
ken again saying he would he would like
[17:18] fewer but full-time city councillors
representation by the five hamlets
[17:22] rather than at large so word or division
based
[17:25] and then ranked ballots it says quality
of life is high for maybe half the city
[17:30] and some other pieces there about
housing and wages
[17:33] torrey says combination we have in
stratford from ranging from our festival
[17:37] to our numerous sporting opportunities
gives us many amenities of a large city
[17:41] while living in the comforts of a small
city makes it a place that offers the
[17:45] best of all worlds
ken notes there's a high percentage of
[17:49] seniors many transferred their wealth
here so they can do well mark says it's
[17:54] family friendly
you guys should just write the vision
[17:56] statement for the city or the motto for
the city
[18:00] what would you change if anything about
the city
[18:06] anybody
[18:13] you can come back to that if you like so
the last i'm going to skip over the good
[18:16] covenants just so we can keep going on
this but what do you want to get from
[18:19] this series so when the city decided to
organize where council decided to
[18:23] organize this series
they were interested in providing
[18:27] information to the public but i suspect
that there are people here in the public
[18:31] who would like to get something specific
out of it
[18:34] so ken i think it said earlier too it's
nice to have this sort of thing happen
[18:38] not during an election where was that
it's a nice lead into budget discussions
[18:42] 2022.
always been disappointed in how few
[18:46] citizens got involved in pre-budget and
how so many more complain after the fact
[18:51] so with that in mind oops where are we
now
[18:54] yeah
what do you want to get from the series
[18:57] what can i uh help provide you provide
you other than what i've already kind of
[19:00] told you about in outline anything
specific
[19:09] well if nobody has anything that's an
expectation i can meet
[19:14] i'm going to move on and we'll see where
we end up if you have other things you
[19:18] want to say please do
so the first piece we're going to talk
[19:21] about is kind of council's oversight
role some of you have already referenced
[19:25] council and we're going to speak to them
of course because they are the kind of
[19:29] the titular head of the organization if
you like just a couple of notes here
[19:33] about what people want to see and those
couple things show up in chat
[19:36] mandatory voting it's it is very rare
for the mayor city council who has to
[19:41] have the support of constituencies
constituents sorry
[19:44] often 10 to 20 support so how legitimate
are the decisions that they make not
[19:48] sure if that's rhetorical or not
somebody said i would like to city to
[19:52] take a proactive approach to interacting
with citizens
[19:55] so that's tori nike we're starting that
right now
[19:58] bill said i'd like to change i like i
would change the relationship between
[20:02] city hall and the community the
engagement
[20:05] moving from the occasional problem or
issue prompted consultation to a steady
[20:09] regular engagement is an ongoing
conversation
[20:13] somebody else said about the meetings
how to most efficiently and effectively
[20:16] effect change that's very alliterative
ken suggested i forgot to mention term
[20:22] limits for elected positions too many
there for the past and can't see the
[20:26] future i'm gonna leave it at that and
move on and if there are more we'll look
[20:30] at that at the next great next break in
next tight type of break in the in our
[20:34] session here
i will say too that term limits come up
[20:38] a lot and
right across the country so it's not
[20:40] just you
it's one of those things however we will
[20:44] deal with when we talk about which order
of government actually has authority to
[20:48] do what and in actual fact local
government has no authority to set term
[20:52] limits so a counselor could conceivably
come into office on a platform that i'm
[20:55] going to stay here for two two terms or
whatever and we're going to change it
[20:59] bylaw and mandate term limits but they
can't do it
[21:03] it would contradict the canadian
constitution and
[21:07] somebody would likely challenge it we'll
get to that a little bit later
[21:11] so if we think about kind of why council
is here
[21:15] if there was nobody who lived in the
geographical area that is now stratfor
[21:18] there will be no need for an oversight
body which is council and there'll be no
[21:22] need for a city manager in a rec
department and occult and cultural
[21:25] groups because nobody be here but they
are and you've all said why you like
[21:29] stratford and i suspect there are other
reasons that other people would provide
[21:33] as well
so if we think about that council is not
[21:36] looking after the day-to-day of the city
because they've hired people to do that
[21:40] to pick up the garbage and put on
community service programs and those
[21:44] sorts of things so council is there to
steer the ship in the long term they're
[21:48] looking
kind of maybe a generation into the
[21:51] future about what does stratford look
like
[21:54] sometimes i say what does stratfor look
like when it's grown up or when it's
[21:56] completely successful or when you can
imagine far enough down the road that
[22:00] you're probably still living here but
members of council have probably
[22:04] completely changed so that's the ideal
future state and that's what they're
[22:07] working towards so when they look that
far out they can look at this four-year
[22:11] term that they're there or the eight
years or twelve years that they happen
[22:14] to serve or whatever it might be
and say what am i going to do over this
[22:18] term to help us get from here to there
so from that they set a vision for the
[22:22] community and a mission for the
community and a set of values for the
[22:25] community and that sort of thing and
they will work on designing that plan
[22:30] that gets us from here to a generation
from now with fighting off the next four
[22:33] years
and then we'll have a look at who
[22:36] benefits from that are we looking at
collective benefit for everybody who
[22:40] lives in stratfor are we looking for the
benefit of people in the small
[22:43] geographical area of stratford because
there's a necessity there for example
[22:48] maybe all the
water mains are made of wood in part of
[22:52] town and i have run across that so just
part of town needs a lot of money spent
[22:56] in it so that takes away from things
that could be elsewhere because there's
[22:59] still only a hundred percent of dollars
to be spent uh municipal governments
[23:04] don't borrow and can't don't sorry don't
borrow as much as other orders of
[23:07] government and has significant
restrictions on their budgeting in terms
[23:10] of balanced budgets as well so
different affordability
[23:15] we look at who's going to benefit so i
just mentioned that the precedence of
[23:18] the individual or the collective i think
we're seeing that too with canada's
[23:22] federal election at the moment about the
parties who are running
[23:25] some of the parties further to the right
of the conservatives for example are
[23:29] pushing uh individual freedom or
responsibility that kind of thing but
[23:34] people live together in community and
there's a cost to that so people if they
[23:37] wanted to have absolute freedom i
suppose they could go live
[23:40] live in the bush someplace but we don't
we live in community so we're looking at
[23:45] collective benefit
and finally here in order for this to
[23:48] work and not not to go off madly off in
all directions
[23:52] we i
promote what i call cascading alignment
[23:56] so if you have an idea of what the city
is successful
[23:59] the ultimate vision of success for the
city is in a generation
[24:03] and we're working on it from now until
then
[24:05] we can actually start thinking about
what what adds value where are our
[24:09] priorities and so we can fund some
things that are important to us
[24:12] recognizing that not everything is going
to get funded
[24:15] not only that everything that gets added
to a city is a political
[24:21] decision anything that gets changed is a
political decision and everything that
[24:24] gets removed is a political decision an
example of that we see and i would be
[24:28] surprised if you do too
is the recent prominence of pickleball
[24:33] it's a small thing but a lot of people
used to play tennis they don't play as
[24:36] much anymore and now there are more
people who play pickleball so some
[24:40] municipalities have been converting
tennis courts into pickleball courts as
[24:43] well as building some new ones
but originally the decision about tennis
[24:47] was to build those courts and that was a
political decision to met a client it
[24:51] met a need of citizens
but now it's not so much necessary
[24:55] anymore so rather than building a bunch
of new courts we're converting existing
[24:59] tennis into pickleball and that's a
political decision too because there's
[25:03] still a group of people who like tennis
anyway the point being there that there
[25:06] are scarce resources and you're trying
to apply them the best way that you can
[25:11] when we i think i think about priorities
as well so if you have 100 of resources
[25:16] to spend as a municipality and resources
in this case can be people it can be
[25:20] time it can be money it can be political
capital culture all those sorts of
[25:24] things
and you're putting them to the best
[25:26] highest and best use
in this case i look at priority as a
[25:31] matrix of timeliness and important so
something that's neither timely nor
[25:35] important is really not a high priority
something that is both timely and
[25:38] important is a high priority and these
things will change over time they'll
[25:42] change over the course of a four-year
term for example i suspect councillor
[25:46] vasilakos and her her colleagues never
got elected expecting to have to deal
[25:50] with coving but all of a sudden they had
to and then you end up moving into
[25:54] crisis management mode other things have
happened to both other orders of
[25:58] government having downloading for
example or
[26:01] federal government decisions that have
an impact on local governments across
[26:04] the country that they have to deal with
and so they have to start understanding
[26:09] or not start they have to understand as
council the city but it can't be all
[26:13] things to all people what it is that
makes stratford unique
[26:17] i guess just by default would mean that
me here in melville saskatchewan isn't
[26:22] stratford because they choose a
different slightly different boot up
[26:24] bill of great governance as with every
other community in this country
[26:29] and because you've got limited funding
you put it to what's important some
[26:32] municipality a lot of municipalities are
using something called priority based
[26:36] fund priority budgeting or pvb
now
[26:40] and it talks about let's identify all
the services and programs the city
[26:44] offers and let's orderly rank them on an
annual basis or a quadrennial basis and
[26:49] we'll put money to the highest order
things and those things which nobody
[26:53] uses anymore kind of fall off the bottom
example of this working in a small town
[26:58] in in rural alberta they had still have
horse pitching posts on main street and
[27:02] they were still getting funded but
nobody remembers the last time anybody
[27:06] actually hitched a horse to main street
so that examined life well lived is
[27:10] something that they're after
when i think about why people run for
[27:15] office
i i
[27:17] might this is explained in more detail
in my book and it talks about a
[27:20] continuum of service i believe that
people are elected to office or run for
[27:25] office i guess whether they get elected
is up to the up to the citizens of
[27:28] voters
they run either because they're
[27:31] interested in public service or they're
interested in self-service they either
[27:35] want to tell people what to do or they
want to go out and listen to what people
[27:38] want and help them help them achieve
that and i think that's part of those
[27:42] personal attributes that i mentioned a
little while ago as well so i don't
[27:46] think there's anybody at complete ends
of the spectrum there's no complete
[27:50] altruist who is there just for the
public good and i don't think there are
[27:53] terribly many machiavellians at the
other end who are just in there for
[27:57] their own their own benefit in the long
term
[28:00] and when i think about the attributes
that they bring to offices city council
[28:04] there's half a dozen of these attributes
from motivation all the way down to
[28:07] results
and
[28:10] through this continuum
then the attributes have an impact i'm
[28:14] just going to meet
[28:24] okay so anyway there are these
attributes here and if you want to have
[28:28] a look at the slides and have a longer
greater discussion about them we
[28:31] absolutely can
but if you look at people who are
[28:34] running for office or even people who
are serving in office now whether it's
[28:37] in stratford or whether it's your local
or national representatives or somewhere
[28:41] else as well
where do you think the people you're
[28:44] dealing with actually sit on the scale
and they're going to be somewhere
[28:47] between here and it's quite healthy for
a council to have a mix of people you
[28:51] don't want the pure public service and
you certainly don't want the pure
[28:53] self-service but you want a team that is
kind of the highest
[28:57] has the highest level of attributes that
you can get in these in these areas
[29:02] so that's the piece that i was just
going to talk to you very briefly about
[29:05] council's oversight role if we get into
what the city actually can't do a bunch
[29:09] of people put some stuff in the chat
here i'm just going gonna have a quick
[29:11] look through it and see if there's
anything
[29:13] we should have a look at
[29:19] from limits bringing so
in some of the section market said
[29:22] bringing many different kinds of people
to the table for healthy and respectful
[29:26] dialogue i think we just had a bit of a
conversation about that we'll get into
[29:28] that a little bit more when we talk
about engagement
[29:31] i would love to see an easy to use
approach says tori to letting citizens
[29:35] know what's going on in our city and how
they can get involved more engagement
[29:40] count ken says council is here frankly
to simply approve what staff tells them
[29:44] to do they defer to staff in my opinion
way too much
[29:48] in my experience about three foreign
council listen to citizens and either
[29:51] bring up concerns at meetings or get
answers to questions that leaves about
[29:55] seven who basically vote and shoot from
the hip ken we'll get into that a little
[29:58] bit later too because sometimes one of
the principles i find is where you stand
[30:02] depends on where you sit
and things change between when you're
[30:06] elected and sorry between when you're
running for office and when you're
[30:09] elected so i certainly don't dispute
your comment in some cases but i think
[30:13] there are some there's some rationale to
it too
[30:16] uh it uh i think it's alex says in
ontario the municipal election act does
[30:20] allow a musical clerk to make a change
if that change ie term limits is
[30:24] desirable or necessary i'll have to look
into that
[30:28] someone said ken said representatives
voted in should be there to represent
[30:32] the cumulative majority values of their
constituents the long-term view improved
[30:36] quality of life so with this ken
somewhere a little bit later i'd like to
[30:40] comment on this so what about the
concept of short-term pain for long-term
[30:44] gain
if you have a city council who realizes
[30:48] that in order for something good to
happen five years from now something bad
[30:52] i mean that's kind of parochial has to
happen now
[30:55] if we're always voting in the
direct accumulative majority values you
[31:00] end up with a populist government and
populists seem to be really good at
[31:04] short term and not very good at long
term and certainly respond to that a
[31:07] little bit later
someone suggested that city could hold
[31:11] referendums and change the election
process which requires agreement at the
[31:14] provincial level fair enough
smart clear referendums reasons why
[31:18] people run an election to be viewed as
popular to hold higher status the
[31:23] part-time easy money to try and affect
change advocate for a particular lobby
[31:27] group and to challenge themselves
you might be right on some of those for
[31:31] sure that so what you have described in
many ways i think of those people who
[31:35] are the self-service people rather than
the community service or public service
[31:38] people and certainly would be interested
in hearing from you a little bit more of
[31:41] that so those are some comments that
i've just seen in the chat they're just
[31:45] on this council oversight piece and are
about to move on into city role does
[31:49] anybody who's
who's verbally on here want to have a
[31:52] comment or ask a question about the
stuff that they've seen so far
[32:00] as a consultant i'm taught to give five
seconds before i move on so
[32:04] please if anybody does have something
they want to add in i'm i'm more than
[32:07] happy to respond as well
so what the city can and can't do is the
[32:11] piece we're going to deal with right now
you likely know this but we're going to
[32:15] start with a bit of the kohl's notes
version
[32:17] about the four orders of government in
canada
[32:20] federal government of course we're on
the middle of an election they're
[32:23] looking after things which are pan
canadian so coast to coast to coast
[32:27] areas of interest or in some cases they
focus in a particular area if they see a
[32:31] particular area needs help whether it's
crisis management
[32:35] disaster services that sort of thing
whether it needs specific economic
[32:39] uplift or assistance or whether things
have to change in a particular area so
[32:44] examples of things the feds do of course
i've mentioned some of these pan
[32:47] canadian things like immigration
like put the postal service
[32:51] national defense and i put health in
here even though i think all four orders
[32:57] of government have a peace in health but
national health policy the canada health
[33:02] act for example
is under the authority of the feds
[33:05] if we look at the provinces and
territories which are established via
[33:08] the constitution and then potentially
changes the constitution a little bit
[33:13] these are obviously the geographically
constrained areas so this part of the
[33:16] country now most of our i think anyway
most of our state states most of our
[33:21] provinces
is the same size as some a lot of the
[33:24] smaller uh states in the in the world so
there's geographically anyway even if we
[33:29] don't have the population
and areas that they typically look at
[33:33] there's a full list if you look at the
list of ministries on the government of
[33:35] ontario
or
[33:38] territory things like labor that labor
labor policy they look at energy as do
[33:43] provinces in some ways the one that
we're most interested in tonight is
[33:46] municipal affairs
and and education is primarily a
[33:51] responsibility of the province
or territory and finally we're going to
[33:55] look a lot more into the areas of local
interest so local governments rural and
[34:00] urban local governments we're going to
concentrate primarily on urban local
[34:03] governments and on stratford in
particular
[34:06] and then the fourth order being
indigenous government with the first
[34:10] nations many anyway all of which have an
impact right across the country some of
[34:14] which are under under terror under sorry
treaty a lot of a lot of geographical
[34:19] area which is not so we're seeing things
like self-government and truth and
[34:23] reconciliation obviously now with things
like residential schools
[34:27] over the last little while too
the note to this is that all these
[34:30] orders of government have to work
together if we're going to have a
[34:33] successful society so if we look at the
nat about nashville
[34:38] here the national government
had created the constitution in 1867
[34:42] with the constitution act was modified
again in the 1980s when it was actually
[34:47] repatriated back to canada and under the
constitution there's no mention of
[34:52] municipalities as specific order a
specific order of government all the
[34:56] constitution says is that anything to do
with local government belongs to the
[35:00] provinces and territories so the section
92 which is in here just talks about a
[35:05] list of things that the provinces can do
or responsible for number eight on that
[35:09] list is municipal institutions and
provinces and then territories so it's
[35:13] not even
not even really recognized as an
[35:17] order of government
for in
[35:20] in practicality what that means is every
province and territory deals with local
[35:24] government in a slightly different way
you have for example the municipal
[35:28] municipal act municipalities act
other in other parts of country those
[35:33] things are called different things in
saskatchewan for example they have the
[35:37] cities act in the northwest territories
they have the hamlets act
[35:41] in alberta they have the
municipal municipal government act
[35:46] they're all different across the country
so the understanding of local government
[35:51] in one part of the country is not the
same elsewhere as an example of that
[35:54] counties have different terminology in
ontario than they would in alberta
[35:59] bc has something called a rural sorry a
regional municipality
[36:03] manitoba saskatchewan has something
called a rural municipality so there are
[36:07] different bits and pieces that make up
local government around the country
[36:11] even though some of the principles end
up fairly similar the actual way it's
[36:15] carried out is different so comparing a
town or a city in ontario to a town or
[36:20] city somewhere else in the country is
well it's not comparing apples and
[36:23] oranges it's kind of like comparing
golden delicious apples to red delicious
[36:27] apples
as an example of
[36:31] cities
i have different numbers of people which
[36:35] are required in alberta to be a city you
need 10 000 people minimum i'm in
[36:39] saskatchewan in the moment at the moment
in the city of melville which has 4 500
[36:43] people so their rules are different too
and within that of course there are
[36:47] other uh specific attributes that are
provided to local government in some
[36:52] states or some provinces and territories
that aren't the same right across the
[36:56] country so the my point here is if you
were dealing with something like a
[36:59] federation of canadian municipalities
it's not the same from coast to coast to
[37:03] coast but they're all governed by the
constitution which essentially just says
[37:07] here provinces and territories you set
up the rules for municipalities
[37:10] so here if we look at the relevant
legislation you've got the constitution
[37:14] which is the same right across the coast
in coast to coast to coast we've got the
[37:19] municipal act in ontario and all
municipal acts will do the first thing
[37:23] here it will establish municipalities
and within the idea of establishing
[37:28] municipalities it creates municipalities
it could dissolve municipalities
[37:34] it deals with inter-municipal
collaboration if you like in terms of
[37:38] annex or maybe it's not not
collaboration but annexation or
[37:42] amalgamation potentially would be in
those acts as well so municipal
[37:46] structures
there was a case in not case there was
[37:49] in
manitoba a few years ago five or six
[37:52] years ago where the loca the provincial
government in manitoba thought there
[37:56] were too many municipal governments
really small unsustainable ones
[38:00] and they said hey everybody every
municipality go find a dance partner or
[38:04] two until you can get your population up
to a thousand people
[38:07] and that's going to be your new
municipal size and if you don't find
[38:09] your dance partner we'll do it for you
so they have almost arbitrarily or
[38:14] artificially made their municipalities
more sustainable by making them bigger
[38:18] and therefore by making fewer of them
i mean as mentioned in saskatchewan at
[38:23] the moment they have i think 350
municipalities in saskatchewan with a
[38:27] population just over a million people
so you can see that some of them are
[38:30] really really tiny
different places to places
[38:34] your municipal act also talks about what
higher and lower order municipalities
[38:38] can do
higher just in terms of the the rules
[38:42] that they
that they operate by the services they
[38:45] offer those sorts of things
and it talks about councils
[38:49] every municipal act across the country's
councils but it tends to provide just a
[38:54] skeleton of that about a default number
if you like a number of people on a
[38:59] council whether council can change that
number by themselves or not requiring
[39:03] meeting rules and decision-making
authority things like the ability to
[39:06] create bylaws and policies and other
pieces too some municipa some provincial
[39:11] governments say you must have a chief
administrative officer or cao others are
[39:16] silent on that so they're different from
place to place
[39:19] in a lot of places if you take all the
municipal acts so if you went to places
[39:23] like the northwest territories which
actually has three municipal acts two or
[39:27] three i think the yellowknife act city
stand villages and hamlets
[39:32] if you went to those places you would
find that these acts are typically one
[39:36] of the two or three largest acts in the
province or territory and that's because
[39:40] of much of what's in those acts is
technical in nature it's about municipal
[39:44] assessment or
asset management or land use planning
[39:48] those sorts of things which show up in
the acts but could conceivably i guess
[39:51] be their own acts as well and there's a
whole lot more to it as well certainly
[39:55] these acts both well all these pieces of
legislation are on provincial
[39:59] legislative provisions
the municipal uh information sorry
[40:03] freedom of information and protection of
privacy act you have the longest name of
[40:06] a information and privacy act i think in
the country speaks specifically to the
[40:12] by release of information so there's two
pieces of that
[40:15] by default information is free any
citizen has access to any piece of
[40:20] information that any order of government
has however it's the cabinet to it a
[40:25] restriction on it is protection of
privacy
[40:27] so there are lots of reasons or
exemptions to disclosure that are
[40:31] legitimate reasons for that we're going
to talk a little bit more about that
[40:34] about later when they look at those
exemptions some of them are mandatory
[40:37] and some of them are discretionary now
when
[40:40] if some if there's something um
solicitor client privilege for example
[40:46] there is a real and legitimate reason to
keep some things
[40:50] in within uh behind closed doors without
prejudicing the outcome of something
[40:56] this is one of those cases where what
happens on the outside of local
[40:59] government and what happens on the
inside of local government is a
[41:02] difference between what's perception and
what's reality with various shades of
[41:05] gray in there too but some
municipalities too will then look if
[41:09] they look at discretionary
discretionary exemptions to disclosure
[41:13] we'll choose by and large to disclose
some municipalities will choose by and
[41:17] large not to disclose and the the
relevant
[41:21] section of legislation has to be noted
about why that particular something is
[41:25] particularly gone
uh in camera or is an exception to
[41:28] disclosure or not so these are the
pieces of legislation that we typically
[41:32] look
at if we were to look specifically at
[41:35] you in ontario this is the
the
[41:38] the purpose of the municipality and this
is pretty common that very early in
[41:44] municipal acts usually kind of right
after the section on definitions
[41:48] it speaks to why we actually have what
the what's the purpose of having local
[41:52] government wherever it happens to be so
in this case
[41:55] now the the highlighting is added by me
just to draw some attention to this it
[41:59] talks about local government being
responsible and accountable so it is
[42:03] government elected by the people it's
government for the people and it's
[42:07] accountable to the people and that
happens at least once every four years
[42:11] if there's a usually four years in some
places it's still three four years uh in
[42:16] terms of an election or less less free
or more frequently than that if it's a
[42:20] by-election
some of you have spoken about referenda
[42:23] and plebiscites and those typically
aren't binding but they do certainly
[42:28] talk about responsible and accountable
government
[42:32] and the other note i've noted the piece
i've noted here about
[42:36] respect for matters within their
jurisdiction
[42:39] so within the boundaries of the city of
stratfor the city of stratford has
[42:43] control within certain exemptions that
are or other under other jurisdictions
[42:47] like provincial jurisdiction or federal
jurisdiction but the city can do within
[42:52] reason what the city wants to do within
that within that space
[42:55] when it comes to inter-municipal so what
happens on the boundaries between
[43:00] stratford and any of its neighbors
then there's point of negotiation that
[43:04] has to happen and some provinces have
actually pushed for that to say there
[43:07] has to be some sort of formal
inter-municipal agreement between you
[43:10] and your neighbor and your neighbor and
your neighbor and some have said it's
[43:13] just on various topics so for example
just on recreation do you does your
[43:18] neighboring municipality charge
different fees for people from stratfor
[43:22] than they do for their own that is it
reciprocal or things like mutual aid
[43:26] agreements for emergency services will
you help us put a fire out if we promise
[43:29] to help you put a fire out even if it's
across a
[43:32] municipal jurisdictional line so those
are some of the the purposes that are
[43:36] there
if you look at how council operates they
[43:40] really only have three tools that they
can use
[43:43] i call them the levers of governance if
you like
[43:46] you've probably already heard about
these you've probably seen them and some
[43:49] of you probably even read a few
council's strongest tool is bylaws
[43:54] in this case you probably know that a
bylaw requires three separate vo at
[43:59] least three separate votes of counsel to
create or to modify or to remove
[44:04] any of these tools sorry whether it gets
to by law and policy
[44:08] any changes made to a by-law or policy
have to be made using the same tool so
[44:13] you can't use a policy to modify a
by-law you can't you can't use a
[44:17] bilateral modifier policy for example
but anyway council if it's something
[44:22] that's really important council will use
a
[44:25] bylaw for that and things like fees and
charges or land use and those kind of
[44:29] things will typically be bylaws things
like council codes of conduct are often
[44:34] in bylaws too though not universally
and it gives legislative authority which
[44:38] means it provides the city the authority
to act something to make other people do
[44:42] to do something and to penalize people
if they don't do it so this is where the
[44:46] ability of a municipality to levy fines
for example would come from so things
[44:50] like fees and charges what it costs to
go skating or
[44:55] to park downtown potentially would be
set within a bylaw and those are all
[45:00] public they should be most the time
larger municipality will post all their
[45:04] bylaws on their website
sometimes the smaller ones don't just
[45:07] because of technical capabilities or
capacity but they're there at their
[45:10] public documents and you can see them
so i mentioned it takes three readings
[45:14] or three votes to do that
it actually can take four if they want
[45:19] to do it all at once the idea behind the
three votes is to say
[45:24] let's consider it today we'll take a
couple of votes on this and see if we're
[45:28] we still want to do this
and then we'll come back in a couple of
[45:31] weeks and we'll do the third vote on it
to see if we really want to prove it's
[45:34] kind of that so time for sober second
thought however if it's something that's
[45:38] just a slam dunk and they just want to
do it and it just makes sense to
[45:40] everybody they can in fact do all three
readings or votes at the same in the
[45:45] same meeting as long as there is
typically unanimous consent to do that
[45:49] now i don't know that that's universal
across the country but it's pretty
[45:52] difficult
if if and so there are
[45:56] there are lots of bylaws there are even
more policies and policy is divided into
[46:01] governance policy and administrative
policy right now we're just talking
[46:06] governance so the stuff that council
controls
[46:08] the city the city body itself has its
own policies too but we're just going to
[46:12] ignore those for right now
the reason you have policy or a city has
[46:16] policies there's a couple of reasons one
is so that it's predictable
[46:20] so that people know how the city is
going to act they know for example how
[46:24] long the grass is supposed to be before
you cut it so those kind of things can
[46:27] be said in policy it also avoids
repeated questions
[46:31] so council administrator administration
is not supposed to think for itself and
[46:35] go freelance it's supposed to take
direction from council
[46:38] so if
if council doesn't say how long or how
[46:42] often the snow should be plowed for
example or what depth of snow pack
[46:45] before we get out there and plow
conceivably the parks person parks and
[46:49] sorry the public works person could come
to council when it snows and say you
[46:52] want me to play the cloud of snow now it
could come tomorrow and ask the same
[46:56] question and tomorrow and ask the same
question but what policy does it says
[46:59] whenever we get 10 centimeters of packs
no go go plow it don't come ask us again
[47:04] and it that will provide that
predictability it avoids the repeated
[47:07] questions everybody knows that that's
what's going to happen not that case
[47:11] policy only requires a single vote in
order to enact to change or to repeal
[47:16] so and as policies and bylaws both
remain on the books until they're
[47:21] repealed so it's conceivable in a
municipality that you could have bylaws
[47:25] or policies which are 40 or 50 or 60
years old because nobody's looked at
[47:29] them and they're all in hard copy in a
binder some place in a fault
[47:32] but they're still in force
people may not
[47:35] people may not know they're there but
they can still be used so i'm a
[47:39] proponent of making sure that councils
have a go through on all their bylaws
[47:43] and policies kind of once a term if at
all possible so those are the two
[47:47] kind of legislative if you like leavers
they've got the third is around budget i
[47:51] already mentioned things like
priority-based budgeting but you put
[47:55] your money where your mouth is or you
put your money on things that are most
[47:57] important so even if the city doesn't
explicitly say what its priorities are
[48:01] it is putting money someplace into those
sorts of into a bunch of different
[48:05] probably millions of dollars of of
expenses in various areas and it tells
[48:09] you or signals to you
what the city or what city council
[48:13] thinks is important no bunch of the
budget is just going to pay salaries or
[48:18] pay the insurance bill keep the street
lights on those sorts of things but is
[48:22] money going to
uh programs and services that are still
[48:26] needed
are are is
[48:29] are people who live in stratford
comfortable with the way
[48:31] the budget is being spent
are you within some sort of a spending
[48:36] limit most provinces if not all
provinces will set a spending a
[48:39] borrowing limit for uh for budget for uh
sorry for municipalities and they need
[48:44] to stay within that
my final comment on this is around
[48:47] legislative paramedics
and this is a concept which is quite
[48:50] useful because it talks about what you
can kind of what you can and can't do if
[48:54] you like
if for example the city was to pass a
[48:57] bylaw about national defense
to say hey we think that um
[49:04] where i don't know i shouldn't i just
made this up the top of my head but if
[49:08] council wants to create a bylaw about
national defense it really wouldn't have
[49:11] no authority to do that
because it's not within their
[49:15] jurisdiction
and so any federal law that had to do
[49:18] with defense would supersede anything
that the city wanted to do anyway and in
[49:22] that case that part becomes that the
bylaw or the policy becomes null and
[49:26] void if however that by-law also made
reference to something that was within
[49:31] the
city's control like speed limits on
[49:33] urban roads i don't know why you do
those together but whatever then this
[49:36] the piece about speed limits on urban
roads would still remain in effect it's
[49:40] only that piece which is in convention
that can't keep it can't keep going and
[49:45] so there's a requirement at that point
then for city council to have a look at
[49:49] whatever that piece is the bylaw or the
policy and change it so that it's no
[49:53] longer in conflict with the higher order
legislation let us look at peace
[50:00] so i'm just going to take a bit of a
break here and i see we've got some
[50:02] comments or questions in the chat box
and then if anybody else wants to say
[50:06] anything i'm more than happy to listen
to them
[50:10] where are we ken says federal government
gives dollars to province to get a
[50:14] re-elected and b to do stuff so that's
one of my favorite terms is to do stuff
[50:18] because that's what that's what
government does
[50:21] provincial government banks or
re-channels the money from feds to
[50:25] a
get they'll get reelected to hoard money
[50:28] or to do stuff and d downloads work to
cities without money so i do agree with
[50:33] you that there's a lot of downloading
that happens and it only goes one way
[50:37] you can't push that string up a hill
and
[50:40] you the download often downloads
authority sorry responsibility without
[50:44] authority and often that includes
the lack of resources as well
[50:49] so local government tries to make do
with what they get from the province and
[50:52] applies to grants from anyone who gives
them everything
[50:56] al says municipalities need to be
recognized in the federal or provincial
[50:59] constitutions
cities and towns need to be at the table
[51:02] when decisions are made by the feds in
the provinces you'll get no argument
[51:05] from me
but i suspect that change there's no
[51:08] there aren't any provincial
constitutions
[51:11] and but it would have to be a change to
the federal constitution to recognize
[51:14] municipalities as an order of government
some there is something in the
[51:18] federation of canadian municipalities
called the big cities caucus which is
[51:23] just the 20 or 25 largest cities in the
country that often do get a seat at that
[51:27] table but they get it by the by the heft
that they bring rather than by any sort
[51:32] of constitutional validity
question here why is freedom of
[51:36] information information not free
typically the requirement is if somebody
[51:41] makes freedom a valid freedom of
information requests there is a cost to
[51:45] bringing that information together i
can't comment specifically in stratford
[51:48] but that's often why there are fees
associated with freedom of information
[51:52] however some of those fees can be
onerous and you can look at whether
[51:55] those fees are legitimate or not as part
of the fees and charges bylaw that the
[51:59] city would have to adopt and that is
something that a candidate for office
[52:03] certainly could speak to if they wanted
to
[52:06] there are frivolous and vexations
spectatious freedom of information
[52:09] requests too
and that might be part of reason why
[52:12] there's a cost associated
ken says freedom of information cost is
[52:15] not the issue the issue is stratfor is
an automatic no response followed by the
[52:20] maximum longest wait period all by city
lawyers funding ways to say no i'm going
[52:24] to leave that the way it is
you would know your situation more than
[52:27] i do oh the first reference to chinese
shows up lack of transparency or
[52:31] accountability we're going to get to
that later too in our well we'll have a
[52:35] whole session on that we'll talk about
transparency and accountability today
[52:39] and some of the engagement piece about
how cities and citizens
[52:43] connect uh in session number three why
are bylaws not given much in the way of
[52:47] teeth or compliance
so there's an interesting piece to that
[52:50] we're going to look at council code of
conduct and
[52:54] council does have the ability to put
teeth into bylaws if there is the will
[52:59] to do it and if they have the authority
to do it
[53:02] oftentimes biologically identify what
they what what what you want to have
[53:06] what city wants to have happen what
constitutes a breach of whatever that
[53:10] by-law happens to be but oftentimes
that's where it stops and sometimes
[53:15] things like sanctions
whether they are teeth or compliance
[53:19] are are not as detailed as they can be
can't comment specifically on on the one
[53:24] you may be talking about here
uh stratfor operating budgets about 70
[53:29] million dollars a year says can roughly
the same amount as festival spent in a
[53:33] normal year
stratfor can go into debt about 100
[53:36] million dollars cities are expected to
balance budgets that's true so
[53:39] oftentimes the
uh the borrowing limit for
[53:43] municipalities is often about 1.5 times
the operating budget now if anybody
[53:48] knows differently for ontario let me
know but that's typically what i've seen
[53:52] so conceivably you could do that
a lot of cities in particular will
[53:56] actually see the policy that they won't
go that high so if they could borrow 1.5
[54:01] times they say we're going to cap our
internal borrowing limit at one time or
[54:06] 0.8 times or 1.2 times but that that is
okay because it still it doesn't
[54:11] contradict the provincial legislation
if you were to say the city is going to
[54:16] go to two times our annual operating
budget that would contradict
[54:21] a cap that may be in your provincial
legislation and therefore a piece about
[54:24] legislative parameters would come into
effect and it would be null that part of
[54:27] the of the pilot would be null and void
again you would know your situation more
[54:31] than mine but cities are expected to
balance budgets and i think
[54:36] unlike the province and the province of
the federal government which aren't
[54:39] expected to balance budget and we do see
long-term impact for that
[54:43] someone says don says how often should
bylaws come up for review and
[54:47] public ask for review
bylaws don't
[54:50] often have expiry dates on them some of
them do like things like a fees and
[54:54] charges by law will often have to be
reviewed every year or a property tax
[54:58] bylaw will have to be done every year
but a lot of bylaws don't and those ones
[55:02] are the ones that tend to get and stay
in those binders and nobody has a look
[55:06] at them
i'm an advocate of having a look at
[55:09] every every bylaw at least once a term
once every four years now cities the
[55:14] size of stratford that may be impossible
just because of the number of bylaws
[55:18] that have that happened and the only
other business that has to happen but if
[55:21] there's a regular cycle or review that
takes a little longer than four years
[55:24] potentially so be it you're living
starting to live that that examined life
[55:28] anyway and i think there's some validity
to that you could say the same thing
[55:30] about policies as well and there are
usually even more policies than there
[55:33] are bylaws sometimes a city will set up
a bylaw or policy review committee or
[55:37] advisory committee to take that off the
hands of city council itself however
[55:42] only city council can make the final
decisions but they could take a an
[55:45] advice they could take advice from one
of their advisory committees
[55:49] found the piece to this is can public
ask for a review of certain bylaws yes
[55:52] you can
well the city council is under no
[55:54] obligation to do it but you certainly
can make that request and if it is done
[55:59] respectfully legitimately and with a
good rationale
[56:03] a lot of times that will probably show
up the very first
[56:07] calm quote on my presentation this
evening was that margaret mead quote
[56:10] about a small group of involved people
and if they're the ones who are paying
[56:13] attention they're likely the ones who
are going to get hurt
[56:17] that's all the
notes i have right now in the chat did
[56:21] anybody else want to say anything
here about
[56:24] where we are at in terms of legislative
paramouncy or orders of government
[56:28] responsibilities that kind of thing
[56:34] all right we'll keep going bylaws
specifically so we've dealt with the
[56:38] framework of bylaw but if we look at
bios just a neat thing about biology
[56:42] neat to me because i just love the
governance stuff
[56:44] you use the term bylaw with a hyphen on
it a lot of places don't it's just a
[56:48] single word means nothing no difference
of course but it's just a little
[56:52] semantic semantic thing
city i i reference city the how the city
[56:57] has bylaws on the website and they do
so most if not all bylaws are in the on
[57:03] the website i just took a screen grab
here and this one is biased about some
[57:06] bylaws associated with neighborhood
bylaws and rather than just a list of
[57:10] bylaws from a to z i kind of like what
stratford has done here about how you've
[57:14] grouped the bylaws into into places that
it makes sense
[57:19] so it may be some just around governance
about how council operates these ones
[57:22] are around neighborhoods
and neighborhood well-being
[57:26] and others probably on recreation or
public works i suspect as well
[57:30] and i kind of think it's a really
interesting way of doing it because it
[57:32] increases accessibility for the citizens
so you would be free to have a look at
[57:37] any one of these bylaws
they will all say on them when they were
[57:41] created and you typically they will also
talk say on them when they were
[57:46] revised or when a previous one was
repealed so you can have a look at the
[57:50] chronology of them a little bit
when it comes to policies which we're
[57:54] going to deal with in a minute or two
they are a little different in that some
[57:57] of them a lot of templates will actually
have expiry dates or review by expiry
[58:02] dates don't work but review by dates on
policies so that they say
[58:07] there's a bit of an automatic trigger
that says five years from now or ten
[58:10] years from now we should review this
policy so those things are there so any
[58:14] citizen anybody who's got access to the
internet i suppose could review the
[58:18] bylaws for the city and sometimes one of
the interesting things to do is compare
[58:23] effort bylaws with bylaws in other
similar sized cities
[58:26] across the country and just see if there
are some neat ideas i'm a i'm a big fan
[58:31] of a term called wise practice a lot of
people are talking about best practices
[58:35] but i kind of like the idea of wise and
why is to me it's not just because of
[58:39] wise communities either lorena there you
go
[58:41] um i like the idea of wise because it
talks about taking a best practice from
[58:46] somewhere else and adapting it to local
circumstances so for example if you file
[58:51] off from winnipeg which is
five times your size
[58:55] you might see there's some neat
principles in it which we could adapt to
[58:58] stratford but it won't work if we just
slap the name stratford on it we need to
[59:02] take the kernel of the idea modify it
for local use and to me that's a wise
[59:07] practice you take what works somewhere
else adapt it for your local use so
[59:11] anyway these are available to you
if we were to look at the municipal act
[59:16] the um
what this talks about what bylaw what
[59:21] bylaws can do and it talks about any
provide
[59:24] service or thing that the municipality
considers necessary or desirable
[59:29] so as you can see it's a pretty broad
range
[59:32] and the next slide speaks more
specifically to this so this talks about
[59:35] what the city can do
when they're saying some oaths of office
[59:40] or in some bylaws or some municipal
purposes
[59:44] they will speak to in terms of what's
benefit for the community about
[59:48] necessary or desirable whether that is
necessary or desirable for the entire
[59:52] city or whether that is necessary or
desirable for just part of the city now
[59:56] if city council is elected at large they
all represent the same geographical area
[1:00:02] however if see if city council is
elected by wards or divisions or
[1:00:06] whatever you want to call them then the
each city councillor
[1:00:09] represents a different geographical area
of the city and therefore may have some
[1:00:12] different interests in mind as well so
an item which may be of benefit to my
[1:00:17] part of the city may actually be a net
cost to your part of the city and we get
[1:00:21] we're both sitting on city council
so that this the act says you need to be
[1:00:25] looking at
things which are overall benefit to the
[1:00:28] city so on balance over time hopefully
that all wears out but
[1:00:34] councillor
vasilakos at the beginning talked about
[1:00:36] the greater lease
in smaller rural municipalities across
[1:00:41] the country which are divided up into
electoral divisions
[1:00:44] sometimes there's a way to pro quo that
says if some work happened in division
[1:00:48] one there needs to be now some commencer
some other work done in division two or
[1:00:53] division three
you scratch my back i'll scratch yours
[1:00:57] and that's not the way it should work
but that's the way sometimes that it
[1:01:00] does work and that's something for
citizens to keep an eye on and for
[1:01:04] municipal managers to keep an eye on as
well
[1:01:07] if we think specifically about what it
is that the city can do in terms of
[1:01:10] bylaw these are the this is the list
that comes out of the act as well so
[1:01:14] section 11 of the act and i again added
the highlights to this because it says
[1:01:18] what the city can do in this case the
corollary being that anything's not on
[1:01:23] this list is stuff that city can't do so
it can set its own structure for the
[1:01:28] municipality and the boards or
committees that it sets up
[1:01:31] accountability and transparency shows up
specifically to this
[1:01:35] it doesn't say whether it should be or
shouldn't be accountable and transparent
[1:01:38] but there are things i have learned like
accessibility which overarch some of
[1:01:43] what the city can do but we still have
to abide by provincial legislation on
[1:01:48] accessibility for example and
accountability and transparency does
[1:01:51] show up
the financial management money in money
[1:01:55] out
how it gets spent how it gets allocated
[1:01:58] for the audit that sort of thing shows
up
[1:02:00] municipal assets capital assets are one
of the biggest line items in municipal
[1:02:05] budgets and in many times they are
something that you don't often see i had
[1:02:10] a mayor joked to me once and it's really
hard to cut a ribbon on a sewer system
[1:02:14] but they're really important if you try
going without a water system or a sewer
[1:02:17] system the municipality's not going to
do very well and asset management shows
[1:02:21] them to this too so it's not like
building a recreation center a new
[1:02:24] performing arts center where you can
look at it and have some sort of
[1:02:29] edifice complex if you like but it's
really important to have it to make a
[1:02:33] commun complete community
so economic social environmental
[1:02:38] well-being
comes in too i've noticed a lot of the
[1:02:42] ontario legislation uses the term
well-being and a lot of it speaks to the
[1:02:46] environment and i suspect that physical
environment when cities look at
[1:02:50] environment my
proposal to them is to look at the land
[1:02:53] and anything that happens on or under
the land so in some ways if you're
[1:02:57] looking at environmental well-being
things like that deep infrastructure has
[1:03:01] an impact because it's a disturbance on
the environment if you're going to do
[1:03:04] something like that
you've ran for instance climate change
[1:03:07] in here specifically too i have a
colleague by the name of mark anielski
[1:03:12] who's written a couple of books on
well-being
[1:03:14] an economy of well-being and the economy
of the economics of happiness
[1:03:19] at which point he's starting to measure
social and social well-being and how i
[1:03:24] use the phrase earlier on about why
people move to stratford and what makes
[1:03:28] them stay there and my colleague mark
has actually developed a process to
[1:03:32] start measuring some of that
health and safety is pretty common
[1:03:36] services and i love the word when things
shows up in legislation too which the
[1:03:40] municipality is
authorized to provide and finally
[1:03:43] protection of persons and property so
emergency services shows up here and it
[1:03:49] shows up here too so those are the
things the city can do
[1:03:53] they also so that's kind of the general
piece more specifically then in a
[1:03:58] subsequent section of the act these are
some of the things if you like that the
[1:04:02] city is authorized the places that the
city is authorized to act the term
[1:04:06] highway shows up but highway just really
needs roads from my reading of it as
[1:04:10] well this because it it's provincially
it's sorry it specifically excludes
[1:04:14] provincial highways
transportation systems so trails or
[1:04:18] dog paths or transit
shows up here how you waste management
[1:04:23] which i in my eyes would include things
like
[1:04:26] composting recycling all those kind of
things too
[1:04:29] public the use of public utilities and
we see that change throughout the
[1:04:32] country too particularly now with
broadband internet
[1:04:36] some municipalities are starting to look
at things like broadband as a public
[1:04:39] utility rather than just something
that's for private consumption and there
[1:04:43] are some other pieces too in underserved
communities where
[1:04:46] electric electric
electricity or natural gas sometimes are
[1:04:51] public ut publicly owned utilities too
parks rep culture and heritage shows up
[1:04:56] here and i think when i think of
stratfor
[1:04:58] as some of you mentioned off the top
this is what i and probably most
[1:05:01] canadians think about
stratford as a city
[1:05:05] drainage and flood control
accepting storm sewers and i must admit
[1:05:09] a little bit of ignorance to the storm
sewer part
[1:05:11] about why that's not included but how
you move water from where it's not
[1:05:15] supposed to be to where it is supposed
to be without causing problems so flood
[1:05:19] avoidance
structures buildings so building
[1:05:22] permitting
uh it shows up here too
[1:05:26] uh parking except on those highways so
parking lots and street parking
[1:05:30] animal control an animal licensing
dev which probably is interest of
[1:05:35] interest to several of you what is it
again that makes stratford unique and
[1:05:39] several of you who talked about economic
diversification right off the top would
[1:05:42] come in here and then licensing of
businesses
[1:05:45] uh cost of licensing and monitoring of
those licensing
[1:05:49] so the next piece is about policies but
i see a few people have put some
[1:05:53] comments in the chat so i'll just kind
of respond to that
[1:05:58] oh
how often could a vote of city council
[1:06:01] vacate than shinny non-disclosure
agreement since the proposal is now
[1:06:04] defunct
now you're getting into something here
[1:06:07] that is much more specific to stratfor
than i can really answer so uh john i
[1:06:12] apologize i can't give you that
um
[1:06:16] because there may re
some of those exceptions to disclosure
[1:06:19] if they were legitimately used in things
like negotiation with a third party or
[1:06:24] land use in terms of sale or purchase of
land speculating because you don't want
[1:06:30] to give away what you what you're
willing to pay some of those things will
[1:06:33] remain confidential even after the fact
i can't comment on the specifics of that
[1:06:37] one but that's some of what i've seen
with it
[1:06:39] are there jurisdictions that have sunset
clauses and bylaws i haven't sorry
[1:06:43] that's not true i have seen some that
some set causes in some by-laws some of
[1:06:48] them like i mentioned are annual like a
property tax by-law or a fees and
[1:06:51] charges bylaw
but other bylaws conceivably then could
[1:06:55] say this by-law will expire on january
1st 2025 unless it's renewed because
[1:07:00] those sorts of things do happen
should an update of zoning bylaws be
[1:07:04] done before a review of the op official
plan
[1:07:09] it's probably useful to do that i would
suggest at least in conjunction with the
[1:07:12] official plan the effect the plan itself
will over arch bylaws so plan will set
[1:07:18] what you want stratfor to look like over
the next x number of years and the
[1:07:21] bylaws will be used to get to that place
so if there are bylaws which are
[1:07:27] not useful in providing
for something that is identified as a
[1:07:31] priority in the official plan then the
bylaw whatever it happens to be zoning
[1:07:35] or otherwise probably ought to at least
be reviewed
[1:07:38] there are some smart people who have
created some of these bylaws and
[1:07:42] engineering companies and lawyers and
whatnot that will have had to look at
[1:07:44] them too sometimes there can be unif
unintended consequences to changes
[1:07:49] somebody notes that i'm cutting out at
times i apologize for that i saw a
[1:07:52] little while ago my notes say the
internet was unstable it could just be
[1:07:55] that hotel i'm in if it does cut out
again thank you for letting me know mark
[1:07:59] but just yell at me at the time and i'll
i don't know what i'll do but i'll
[1:08:03] wave back
one biola that grinds my gears is the
[1:08:06] animal bylaw says ken
2014 it's still in effect even though
[1:08:11] council received the citizens provider
committee recommendations three years
[1:08:14] ago
city's been too busy to pass the new one
[1:08:18] so that's one of the interesting things
about city council committees for the
[1:08:21] most part is they are purely advisory
that city council can listen to their
[1:08:25] advice they can take their advice they
can discount their advice or they can do
[1:08:28] something in between
not doing anything is acting
[1:08:34] again i don't know the specifics of this
but if it is something that grind your
[1:08:37] grinds your gears i would suspect and if
they're if it's something that's
[1:08:39] grinding other people's gears too that's
one of those things that small groups of
[1:08:43] citizens can really assist with
more sound stratford owns its own hydro
[1:08:48] oh there we go so festival hydro is a
power producer so that's one of those
[1:08:52] places that that you actually do do that
how much control does
[1:08:56] city have over police budgets
it depends on the other my answers say
[1:09:01] it depends i apologize for that
it depends on the police act within
[1:09:05] ontario
often times municipalities
[1:09:09] if they have their own police service
that police service is
[1:09:14] still
under the authority of a higher order
[1:09:17] government act so if there is a policing
act in ontario i didn't even prep for
[1:09:22] this by looking at that sort of thing
that oftentimes the police act would set
[1:09:25] up a police commission
a commission is separate from city
[1:09:30] council
and if a city councilor sits on a police
[1:09:34] commission they are usually wearing
their commission hat not their city
[1:09:38] council hat they're supposed to act in
the best best interest of the commission
[1:09:42] and the police service i guess
indirectly rather than the city same
[1:09:45] sort of thing often happens with
libraries as well with if there are a
[1:09:48] specific library
that the library board member will be a
[1:09:52] board member not a city councilor while
they're actually sitting around the
[1:09:55] board table it's a matter of semantics
in a lot of cases however though making
[1:09:59] your comment about police
so police oversight belongs to the
[1:10:02] commission police budget however is
something that is a city council of
[1:10:06] responsibility and that could that is
a budget line like fire services or like
[1:10:12] recreation or like social services in
the budget and it's up to council then
[1:10:17] to weigh
the requirements of that public safety
[1:10:21] initiative if you like to provide the
dollars to
[1:10:24] if you have suggested to a police
to the police department or police
[1:10:28] service at a level that they think is
appropriate for what they got given that
[1:10:32] they also have other things they've got
to fund as well
[1:10:35] we've seen some councils
look we heard that what was it last year
[1:10:38] they um
defund the police and those sorts of
[1:10:41] things that came up but some
municipalities were saying we need to
[1:10:44] put more money into prevention and so
we're actually increasing
[1:10:48] not necessarily police but increasing
public safety budgets because they were
[1:10:52] leaving police similar to where they
were but adding more preventative with
[1:10:56] the idea being that short-term pain for
long-term gain some years from now if we
[1:11:00] can get ahead of the root causes of
crime we're not going to need as much in
[1:11:04] terms of downstream policing that's a
that's a debate for
[1:11:08] you as citizens of stratford and for
city council to have as well i don't
[1:11:13] know what does that mean how am i okay
i'll leave that
[1:11:17] police in the fire are big pieces of
budget absolutely they are often times
[1:11:21] labor uh
in general is the largest one
[1:11:25] in municipal government
then infrastructure roads sewers that
[1:11:29] kind of thing is pretty high as well but
in terms of services emergency service
[1:11:33] is often quite high and even if
municipality has a contract with the
[1:11:36] rcfp
donna asks how many years does stratfor
[1:11:40] prepare their budget in advance is it
one to ten years in advance
[1:11:43] i can't answer that specifically
municipal governments typically have
[1:11:47] one-year budgets but they'll often put
an outlook on that a two-year three-year
[1:11:52] outlook on operating budgets we'll deal
with budget a little later too
[1:11:56] on capital budgets however it's usually
a lot longer because the ice plant at
[1:12:01] the arena is going to last a lot longer
than a lawnmower is going to last
[1:12:05] so as in look in terms of asset
management we look further afield so a
[1:12:09] capital plan if it looks at things like
roads and sewers and heavy maintenance
[1:12:13] on arenas can be up to 25 years
and it identifies needs when is expected
[1:12:19] to be when the money is expected to be
needed and potentially what sources of
[1:12:23] revenue there are now you're limited of
course it can come from property taxes
[1:12:28] it can come from some sort of a levy it
could come from a matching grant but of
[1:12:32] course if you're relying on money from
other orders of government it's kind of
[1:12:35] tough to be able to do that in any kind
of a consistent way but prudent asset
[1:12:39] management looks a long way out
ken says council is working on five-year
[1:12:44] budgets but still only one they vote on
that's correct
[1:12:47] i've seen lethbridge alberta did a
four-year budget
[1:12:50] over the course of a term at one point
or two terms ago so at the beginning
[1:12:55] they had predictable property tax
increases over the course of four years
[1:13:00] the problem was that they weren't able
to anticipate some of the things that
[1:13:03] had happened
it wasn't covered but something is no
[1:13:07] strategy survives first contact with
reality so there's always something that
[1:13:10] gets in the way and has an impact so a
one year budget is mandatory for the
[1:13:15] most part sometimes two or three with
the second and third being a rolling
[1:13:19] budget so it would say once we're done
with this year we'll just add another
[1:13:23] year on the end of it all and just roll
in one year into the next into the next
[1:13:27] so you have a pretty good idea of what
the budget is going to be even if
[1:13:31] you don't have the level of specificity
of actually setting property tax rates
[1:13:35] into future years but you have a like a
ballpark to go for
[1:13:39] so shorter term almost always as always
you'll have shorter term budgeting for
[1:13:44] for uh operating and longer term
budgeting per capita just because of
[1:13:48] just of the nature of the stuff you a
municipality actually does
[1:13:53] i'm going to move on to policy if i can
unless there was anybody who had a tech
[1:13:57] verbal question they wanted to ask
[1:14:02] seeing none we'll move on to policies
so in so bylaws as you recall were those
[1:14:08] things that require three votes to enact
to change or to repeal
[1:14:11] and where the mo
are the legislative tool account that
[1:14:14] municipalities use that have the highest
impact most important you also have
[1:14:19] policies on afterwards and that's that
piece about certain morality is
[1:14:22] predictable and it can avoid repeated
questions and i use this reference the
[1:14:27] other day and said
if you look at statute municipalities
[1:14:31] act for example that kind of sets the
skeleton of the municipal structures in
[1:14:36] ontario
if you look at bylaws that starts to add
[1:14:39] some flesh to the bones if you look at
policies now you're adding skin to that
[1:14:42] flesh and then if we look a little bit
later into things like culture or
[1:14:46] principles it adds clothing to all of
that so by the time you've done all four
[1:14:50] of those things stratford is unique
there's no other place in the world
[1:14:53] quite like it
so this now is we're into step three if
[1:14:57] you like so putting the skin on that
that uh
[1:15:01] the bones and the muscle
so here in terms of this is our series
[1:15:06] of policies and much like the bylaws
that we referenced earlier a lot of the
[1:15:09] policies that have an impact on you as
people who live and operate and run
[1:15:14] organizations in stratfor are listed on
the city's website and
[1:15:17] they have a pretty darn good job of it
actually
[1:15:20] and so they are there for you to have a
look at to review
[1:15:24] a council
like bylaws can look at these things and
[1:15:28] change them if they see fit they would
respond to the needs as they as they
[1:15:32] arise and hopefully then review policies
in the same sort of fashion that they
[1:15:35] review bylaws as well this one i happen
to pick was around accountability and
[1:15:40] transparency because i figured some of
you might be quite interested in how
[1:15:43] this actually works the music the at the
policies at the bottom of the screenshot
[1:15:48] here are from the municipal act itself
and it talks about where what sort of
[1:15:53] things
that a municipality ought to have policy
[1:15:56] about
and this is the sort of reference to the
[1:15:59] act itself so they can have policies
around sale of land or disposition of
[1:16:04] land they can talk about hiring
employees employee numbers employee
[1:16:08] status that kind of thing
a relationship between council
[1:16:13] and its officers in reality the
the only person
[1:16:18] who is responsible to council is the
city manager everybody else in the
[1:16:21] municipal structure is a is a staff
person of the city manager not of
[1:16:25] council so council can't direct staff
other than the city manager and an
[1:16:30] individual member of city council can't
direct the city manager either it needs
[1:16:34] to be through an act of counsel itself
through a resolution or a mile or a
[1:16:38] policy
procurement of goods and services
[1:16:41] shows up here
we sometimes write policies or bylaws
[1:16:44] for municipalities and oftentimes
procurement actually shows up in bylaw
[1:16:48] because it's finance rather than policy
but here we are in the municipal act and
[1:16:52] it's showing up in policy one of the
pieces we have seen in procurement just
[1:16:56] kind of need is a buy local provision
and it is said and that we see this a
[1:17:01] lot in the north actually where goods
and services are really expensive and
[1:17:04] quite scarce they have said if there's a
local provider we will actually pay x
[1:17:08] percent more for local than we would to
bring somebody in from external to kind
[1:17:13] of keep the dollars floating around the
municipality and they've said we
[1:17:17] recognize that it's going to be tough
it's a tough go of it sometimes and you
[1:17:20] as a local provider may have increased
fees that others don't so
[1:17:25] if it's going to cost us 10 more to buy
truck tires from you then from somebody
[1:17:30] else will still consider that equivalent
and that's just kind of a neat way of
[1:17:33] doing it for local economic development
notice to the public comes in here too
[1:17:39] so if there are things that are
happening
[1:17:42] construction things or even notice of
meetings
[1:17:45] uh biology statutory bylaw changes all
those kind of things can be in here too
[1:17:51] as our accountability and transparency
which is very
[1:17:56] it's a lot stronger i think in ontario
than i've seen elsewhere across the
[1:17:59] country
delegation of power and duties council
[1:18:03] often doesn't or can't delegate a whole
lot of power and duties to anybody who's
[1:18:07] not counsel but it can do can set up
things like advisory committees like
[1:18:11] some of the ones you referenced one of
the places we often see this is in
[1:18:15] council remuneration no counselor likes
to vote on their own salary
[1:18:20] no counselor likes to give themselves a
raise maybe you should say that
[1:18:23] so oftentimes a municipality will set up
a committee to say we need to get advice
[1:18:27] on what council remuneration ought to be
for the next three four five six years
[1:18:32] and ask people around citizens group or
ask the chamber to be involved and
[1:18:36] provide a recommendation back to council
however when that happens
[1:18:40] the final decision still rests with
council
[1:18:44] but their salary is part of the budget
so they have to approve salaries as part
[1:18:47] of the budget but they can at least say
then we
[1:18:50] engaged broadly
and did something about it this we when
[1:18:55] this happens things show up like if
you're if you're in a unionized
[1:18:58] community the council will get the same
raise that the union gets or they will
[1:19:03] say the council will only get cost of
living allowances or something to that
[1:19:06] effect
somebody mentioned earlier too about
[1:19:08] full-time versus part-time counselors
that's where this would potentially show
[1:19:11] up to
protect and enhance the tree company
[1:19:15] canopy story and natural vegetation if
you remember some of the note around the
[1:19:19] purposes of municipalities and municipal
acts spoke specifically to this and it's
[1:19:23] kind of neat to see it here in your
municipal act as well
[1:19:26] as with pregnancy the even parental
leave which those of us
[1:19:30] in alberta
i'm not sure if you're very thrilled
[1:19:33] with us at the moment i'm not
particularly thrilled with us at the
[1:19:34] moment we're a long way behind on a
whole lot of this stuff
[1:19:38] but we are now starting to see things
like i don't think they've called it
[1:19:42] pregnancy maybe parentally for sure has
been has been a big thing for local
[1:19:46] government councils in this part of the
world as well so those are some of the
[1:19:50] things that policies can deal with that
are kind of a little bit more granular
[1:19:54] if you like than what bylaw deals with
it's again the meat on the bones
[1:19:59] so
a question here
[1:20:02] question i'm pretty sure this section
i'm just going to look at the chat here
[1:20:06] um
ken says unless you're a large city like
[1:20:10] toronto who record all votes of all
motions cities like stratfor just have
[1:20:13] an informal yes no it's recorded
whatever no accountability usually the
[1:20:17] way this is written is municipal acts
most of the time the musical acts were
[1:20:21] done in days before a lot of
digitization so it's not something
[1:20:25] thought of in fact and see a lot of
these acts actually speak to
[1:20:28] notices have to being in newspapers
it doesn't speak to electronic
[1:20:32] distribution of notices putting things
on facebook or websites even though it's
[1:20:36] typically done the newspaper still still
shows up in there
[1:20:39] so oftentimes the acts will say the
thing that something is only have to be
[1:20:44] passed by a majority of the indicated
majority of counselors however that
[1:20:47] happens to be historically of course
that was just everybody's in the room
[1:20:50] you just put your hand up and that's how
it works
[1:20:52] so it's just yes versus no and whoever
whoever wins the day wins the vote
[1:20:57] however the act itself usually says if
somebody wants to call for a recorded
[1:21:00] vote they can in which case the names of
the people who voted yes and the names
[1:21:05] of the people who voted no were actually
recorded in the meeting minutes rather
[1:21:08] than just saying it carried or failed it
says so and so voted in favor so and so
[1:21:13] voted against
in some places a meeting procedure bylaw
[1:21:17] will go a step further and we'll say
we're just going to record all the votes
[1:21:21] and
if that that certainly can be done in
[1:21:24] the age of technology now where meetings
are webcast and recorded even if it
[1:21:29] isn't a recorded vote usually you can
see who put up their hand and so if it's
[1:21:34] not recorded you can have a look it's
very rare that it would be completely
[1:21:38] anonymous how people voted
there's an interesting piece in here too
[1:21:42] about abstentions and that varies across
the country in some places every
[1:21:46] councillor must vote unless there's a
reason not to they can't vote like they
[1:21:51] have a conflict of interest or something
called pecuniary interest
[1:21:54] and if they don't vote when they should
they are disqualified from office and
[1:21:57] their seat is considered vacant they're
hired to do a job and if they refuse to
[1:22:00] do their job then go find somebody else
who can do it
[1:22:03] in other places you can do an abstention
and it's just
[1:22:06] you vote just even counted in some other
places if you abstain it's counted as a
[1:22:11] no vote
so that all has an impact on how things
[1:22:14] will actually
shake out at the end of at the end of
[1:22:18] the meeting
so as for ken's comment around
[1:22:21] accountability
you unless the recording unless the vote
[1:22:24] is a recorded vote or you have a literal
recording of the vote you're right that
[1:22:30] you you don't see who voted for what
uh donna asks is stratfor the cio the
[1:22:35] city manager yes
the cao is chief administrative officer
[1:22:39] it could go by a variety of titles if
it's if it's called city manager in
[1:22:43] stratford then yes it's your city
[1:22:48] what else do we have
in here
[1:22:58] i should get to the top of the chat and
i want to be at the bottom of the chat
[1:23:02] oh somebody else already answered the
cao question
[1:23:06] uh procurement stratfor council has
continuously and greatly increased the
[1:23:10] monetary limits staff can approve
without having to go to council
[1:23:13] yeah so in a procurement bylaw or
procurement policy whatever tool they
[1:23:17] use you don't want every dollar and cent
having to come to council for approval
[1:23:22] so often times there are limits on what
what's what can happen or can be spent
[1:23:28] and i don't know the limits within
stratford but it would say like if
[1:23:31] you're a frontline person you can spend
25 without approval if you're a
[1:23:34] frontline manager you can spend a
thousand dollars without approval you're
[1:23:39] a senior manager you can spend ten
thousand dollars without approval and if
[1:23:42] your cio maybe it's higher than that and
i say without approval but it's not
[1:23:46] usually exactly that way it's not
without having to go to council for
[1:23:49] something that's not in the budget
so there are procurement limits on if
[1:23:55] you want to spend over x amount of
dollars there are different things that
[1:23:57] you have to do you have to get three
bids you have to go to an open rfp you
[1:24:01] can sole source
typically sole source is the lowest
[1:24:04] amount just give the contract or a
purchase to somebody to go and buy paper
[1:24:09] and staples you don't want to get three
bids for that
[1:24:11] if you're asking someone like me to come
in and do a strategic plan for the city
[1:24:15] it's quite common that we'd find out we
are one of three companies that get
[1:24:18] asked because it's a fairly limited
market and if it's going to cost x
[1:24:22] amount of money it's useful to have a
bit of a competitive bid if you're going
[1:24:25] to buy that metaphorical grader chances
are that goes to a public tender in
[1:24:30] which case it's probably in the public
works budget
[1:24:33] in terms of a
not an exact amount but a range and
[1:24:37] somebody will bid on that on the open
market and come in on that so it's
[1:24:43] what is this so those are the two pieces
the there's sometimes a bit of a
[1:24:48] an exception to that in terms of
emergency
[1:24:51] so
if things if there's a flood for example
[1:24:54] and somebody has to go buy sandbags you
don't want to have to wait for the next
[1:24:57] council meeting for that to happen so
oftentimes the cao will have something
[1:25:02] in a procurement policy that's somewhere
that says
[1:25:05] under 100 i mean i'm making the number
up completely but under a hundred
[1:25:08] thousand dollars in an emergency
situation cio just goes to do it but you
[1:25:12] have to report it to council at the next
meeting
[1:25:14] and often times so that does happen
sometimes and sometimes there will be a
[1:25:18] conversation that involves the mayor as
the head of council in that too and the
[1:25:21] mayor then will will
pass on information to other members of
[1:25:25] council as in due course if you like as
part of that so there's regular regular
[1:25:30] purchasing and then emergency publishing
emergency purchasing and by its nature
[1:25:35] emergency publishing publishing i don't
know where that's coming from emergency
[1:25:38] purchasing is done
um outside the budget because we don't
[1:25:43] budget for fires and floods and that
sort of thing we're just
[1:25:47] happening a lot of that stuff ends up
recouped by insurance anyway
[1:25:51] so anyhow
uh 99.5
[1:25:55] of city council votes are not recorded i
will have to take your word for that
[1:25:59] parts of the city reporting internet
problems here plus a lot of people are
[1:26:02] off to see the local air show
i came in second to the snowbirds i'm a
[1:26:07] private pilot i'm okay coming in second
to the snowbirds
[1:26:12] and i think we're up to date hey does
anybody hear anything
[1:26:15] i have a question i should go ahead
yeah it's dave hartney um does it matter
[1:26:21] so the voting whether it's uh you know
one by one voter or uh
[1:26:26] or many votes if it's a hundred it's a
thousand dollar purchase and like an
[1:26:30] expenditure or if it's a forty million
dollar expenditure
[1:26:34] is it still one vote one vote to uh
like for instance if it's a six to five
[1:26:41] vote just spend the money
it doesn't matter the amount right
[1:26:45] no it doesn't matter the amount
okay
[1:26:48] and the the
[1:26:55] it is a democracy but it's a demar it's
a rule of the majority rule
[1:26:59] not only that you may have heard the
term too once a vote is done it's
[1:27:03] considered a council decision and
members of all members of council are
[1:27:06] expected to support it now some will a
lot of will gripe about it behind the
[1:27:10] scenes but in public they're supposed to
say it's the will of council and here we
[1:27:14] go whether it's 40 or 40 million dollars
now chances are there's a whole lot more
[1:27:18] rigor that has gone into the
investigation about the 40 million
[1:27:22] dollars not only that people will say
they need more information
[1:27:26] and one of the problems that counselors
have is almost never all the information
[1:27:31] in order to be to make timely decisions
sometimes they have to make they have to
[1:27:35] make those decisions based on the best
information they have at the time
[1:27:38] and that usually works out but sometimes
you can
[1:27:41] come and bite them
as turned out to be a mistake at the end
[1:27:44] of it all too
nobody tends to fret too much over the
[1:27:47] smaller ones nearly as much as they do
about the larger ones and sometimes it's
[1:27:51] a it's an investment if you like or a
budget that wasn't made it can cause
[1:27:55] just as much of the problem of the money
that was
[1:27:58] spent i don't know if that answers your
question well enough yeah yeah no for
[1:28:02] sure it does i have one more um
um if uh
[1:28:06] you had that chart there we talked about
why people might get into being a
[1:28:11] councilman right i think one was ego and
blah blah blah i can't remember what
[1:28:14] they are but if you him yep
go ahead
[1:28:19] yeah i just lost my turn
[Laughter]
[1:28:22] if it shows up again is is uh what's the
idea like in my in my world or maybe i'm
[1:28:28] naive i think that the counselors should
represent the opinion
[1:28:33] of the their constituents
not their own opinion or not their
[1:28:38] children's opinion or
your neighbor's opinion it should be the
[1:28:41] opinion of
of of this uh stratfor
[1:28:47] you will get
this idea
[1:28:50] i don't know if the ideal is whatever
works for you you have as much right to
[1:28:53] the vote that you choose to cast as
anybody else does on this call or
[1:28:56] anywhere else around the country
and you will base that on whatever you
[1:29:00] consider to be the important criteria
and if you're electing at large so you
[1:29:04] get to elect a whole slate or suite of
candidates you may choose different
[1:29:08] things
you probably want your i shouldn't uh
[1:29:13] say this specifically about you but
typically people want their city council
[1:29:17] to represent the depth and breadth of
their community so you don't want 11 or
[1:29:22] 13 of the same person you want to have
some difference there
[1:29:26] councils to me anyway one of the major
things that councils have to do is think
[1:29:30] long term
so if they are looking at the will of
[1:29:32] the majority in the short term
sometimes that can prove problematic
[1:29:37] over the long term if they're not
investing now for a successful and
[1:29:41] sustainable future it may be fine for
the next four years or eight years but a
[1:29:45] generation from now maybe you
painted yourself into a corner so
[1:29:49] counselors ought to be able and willing
to take some of those risks recognizing
[1:29:53] that they're investing some of their own
political capital when they do that
[1:29:59] okay thank you
okay
[1:30:01] i'm going to keep going here that's this
is something else i don't want to cut
[1:30:04] off your questions either
all right
[1:30:08] i love this stuff you guys
budget oh here we go
[1:30:12] so let's just a little bit on budget
because we're going to have a full
[1:30:14] session on it
a note that
[1:30:17] though the province and fed's fiscal
year runs april 1st to march 31st
[1:30:23] the calendar year is the budget year for
municipalities so when it comes to
[1:30:27] things like grants
it can be a little bit peculiar because
[1:30:30] the if it's the province or the feds
that are providing the grant oftentimes
[1:30:33] the reporting has to be done on their
schedule not on the city's schedule
[1:30:38] somebody made a reference earlier too
about budgeting needing to be balanced
[1:30:42] financial statements have to be audited
so that you know there's nothing funny
[1:30:46] going on
and the auditor can't be a member okay
[1:30:49] sorry can't be a staff person office of
the city so the bookkeeper if you like
[1:30:54] there probably is an auditor on staff
with the city or a series of people in
[1:30:58] the finance department who probably do
really good work and provide all the
[1:31:01] documentation to the auditor but the
auditor themselves is not an employee of
[1:31:05] the city not only that the auditor is
responsible and hired directly by
[1:31:09] council not by the city itself so it's
not the author is not responsible to the
[1:31:14] city manager or the finance director
they're responsible to counsel
[1:31:17] now in in pract for practicality
purposes the auditor will work with city
[1:31:24] administration
significantly closely during the audit
[1:31:27] period
what this means however is when the
[1:31:30] audit happens the report comes to
counsel not specifically to
[1:31:34] administration and then administration
reporting to council so council gets to
[1:31:38] see the finance the financial audit
whether that's the numbers or whether
[1:31:41] it's a process audit and any notes that
might be part of that audit
[1:31:45] it also means that if they want to
council can meet with the auditor in
[1:31:49] camera behind closed doors if there are
questions that they have about the audit
[1:31:54] and recommendations that the auditor may
have said
[1:31:57] now the audit usually differential
legislation will say that the auditor
[1:32:02] can you have to go to market with an
audit
[1:32:06] for the auditing services every x number
of years three four five years so that
[1:32:10] you don't have the same auditor for 40
years in a row
[1:32:14] not conceivably i guess you could but at
least you're making that choice
[1:32:17] to do that
you are as a municipality set on set and
[1:32:22] monitor budget
the for for
[1:32:25] administration that means looking at
things like accounts payable accounts
[1:32:28] receivable all the detail stuff check
registers bank racks all that kind of
[1:32:31] stuff for council however council sets
the budget at the beginning of the year
[1:32:35] that says this is how this is the amount
of money we want to spend and this is in
[1:32:39] large buckets where we want to spend it
so what council should be looking at is
[1:32:43] variance from budget not the budget
itself so we expect it to spend a
[1:32:48] million dollars in this particular line
but we've only spent eight hundred
[1:32:51] thousand dollars why is that or we spent
1.2 million why is that so just looking
[1:32:56] at variants if things are tracking the
way they were budgeted it means that the
[1:33:00] budget is doing what it was supposed to
do
[1:33:03] when the expenses or revenue for that
matter start to deviate from budget it's
[1:33:08] useful at that point for city council to
get involved so they don't you don't
[1:33:11] want city council looking at the
day-to-day week-to-week month-to-month
[1:33:15] numbers you want them looking at the
strategic or the governance perspective
[1:33:19] or what what happens with budget it's
way easier however particularly for a
[1:33:24] new counselor if they're learning their
role to look at a budget line item and
[1:33:28] say hey we're spending way too much on
vehicles our public works trucks are
[1:33:33] costing too much
uh and providing suggestions to that
[1:33:37] that's really not the role the role is
for fleet services are we spending above
[1:33:42] or below where we thought we ought to
now there's often times a really good
[1:33:45] explanation for that
gas prices were really high this year
[1:33:48] for example so we're over on our fuel
amount or
[1:33:52] we had fewer vehicles on the road so our
insurance costs are lower
[1:33:55] so there are often really good reasons
for it but it's that variance from
[1:33:58] budget is really important
when i look at budgeting as a
[1:34:02] municipality there there are
kind of dealt with a bit of this already
[1:34:06] and we're going to deal with this more
detail a little bit later on too there
[1:34:09] are two main budgets budgets the
operating budget and the capital budget
[1:34:13] the operating budget provides
for things that are consumable on a
[1:34:18] day-to-day basis so salaries come in
here those aforementioned paper clips
[1:34:22] come in here keeping the lights on comes
in here and keeping insurance paid does
[1:34:26] too
sort of the stuff that you spend on a
[1:34:28] regular basis as you go capital budgets
are typically larger items larger in
[1:34:33] terms of dollar amounts so capital could
be
[1:34:38] the greater it's going to be the
filter in the pool
[1:34:43] it's going to be a pickup trucks or uh
garbage trucks
[1:34:48] those sort of things which are are
expensive
[1:34:51] and need to be replaced from time to
time so you may know i'm sorry about
[1:34:54] pickup trucks a little while ago you may
know that that pickup truck has to be
[1:34:58] replaced every five years so in your
capital budget you've got every five
[1:35:02] years replace pickup truck so do we put
a little bit of money aside every year
[1:35:06] so that by the time five years rolls
around we have enough money to buy that
[1:35:08] truck maybe you do
if you think about longer term things
[1:35:12] like sewer pipes maybe they have to be
replaced once every 50 years and they're
[1:35:15] really expensive when you do that so do
we need to be putting a little bit of
[1:35:18] money aside every year so we can afford
to replace the sewer pipes
[1:35:23] that's where we start getting into the
next piece here too so those things are
[1:35:26] capital expenses but you may be putting
a little bit of money aside every year
[1:35:29] that's where reserves come in
you could you will there are some
[1:35:32] mandatory reserves that you have to have
and they are often things like
[1:35:37] a vacation allowance vacation reserve
where
[1:35:40] staff are entitled to vacation and that
vacation comes with a salary cost so if
[1:35:46] you're putting a little bit of money
aside every time every month and then
[1:35:49] when the person takes vacation
essentially you're paying them out of
[1:35:52] that reserve budget
other things like that grader or the
[1:35:55] pickup truck they you or a really good
example for large municipalities is a
[1:36:01] fire apparatus you need to buy a new
ladder truck and it's going to cost you
[1:36:04] a million bucks
well you probably don't have a million
[1:36:07] bucks lying around but once every 20
years you could be putting 50 000 aside
[1:36:12] or
and by the time you need it the money's
[1:36:15] there
and so
[1:36:16] it's the dedicated savings but there's
also that optimum balance so you don't
[1:36:20] just keep putting money into that if you
have a child and you've got an education
[1:36:24] savings plan and it's going to cost
fifty thousand dollars to send that kid
[1:36:27] to university
there's not much point putting sixty or
[1:36:30] seventy or eighty thousand dollars in
there so you'll just leave it you'll max
[1:36:33] them out at that optimal balance and
just not touch it
[1:36:36] and so that's the use of reserve so
you've got those three pieces that you
[1:36:41] can use and there's a lot more to this
as i mentioned in um
[1:36:45] in the next session
next piece here is citizen involvement
[1:36:49] with some notes in the chat here
um
[1:36:54] where are we here
how does a council deal with conflict of
[1:36:59] interest
[1:37:02] um
so
[1:37:04] i mean what i may have to do is actually
to make put a little bit more effort
[1:37:08] into conflict of interest into the next
session which is about roles and
[1:37:11] responsibility role clarity i wasn't
going to do that but i've noticed a few
[1:37:15] questions show up around uh
conflict of interest
[1:37:19] oftentimes conflict of interest is
something called pecuniary interest
[1:37:22] which is conflict of interest associated
with money so are there requirements for
[1:37:27] provincial or municipal legislation
typically yes ontario does have a
[1:37:31] well here we go ken has actually
responded to this one about municipal
[1:37:34] conflict of interest act but we will
deal with that one a little bit later if
[1:37:37] that's okay
peop counselors i'm gonna have to look
[1:37:41] at this a bit more but typically
counselors are not allowed to vote on
[1:37:44] anything that would have a financial
impact on them their families or their
[1:37:48] employers
family is usually defined as the person
[1:37:53] obviously their spouse children and
parents sometimes it goes a little bit
[1:37:57] beyond that but in other in some
provinces and the benefit could be
[1:38:01] positive or conceivably it could be a
negative benefit too and there's a bit
[1:38:05] of an interesting quirk to this because
everybody plays property taxes and
[1:38:09] council votes on property taxes so
are they not in conflict of interest
[1:38:13] when they vote to raise property taxes
or decrease property taxes
[1:38:17] and the there's a little nugget in there
that says the conflict of interest
[1:38:21] provisions only apply when there's a
benefit to the to the smaller group
[1:38:25] if it's of benefit or cost to the
community at large
[1:38:29] then there's no conflict of interest and
we'll deal with that just a little bit
[1:38:32] later
you mentioned your integrity
[1:38:35] commissioner is your lawyer so ontario
require i think it requires a lawyer to
[1:38:39] be an integrity commissioner i'm not a
lawyer i have been an integrity
[1:38:42] commissioner i was the integrity
commissioner for the city of saint
[1:38:45] albert north of edmonton which is about
60 or 70 000 people
[1:38:51] someone says donna says i feel people
who are running should take training
[1:38:55] before they put their names on the
ballot yeah absolutely not only that i
[1:38:57] think it should be a test before you're
given your ballot
[1:39:02] asset management program
yeah is there anyone who can run for
[1:39:07] council so the beauty of counselors is
the only difference between account i'm
[1:39:10] going to get this right away the only
difference between you and me and a
[1:39:12] counselor is that they got more votes
than we did they live in the community
[1:39:16] just like the rest of us do they pay
their deposit just like any of the rest
[1:39:19] of us could they're a citizen of canada
presumably they have to be and they they
[1:39:24] just chose to put their name on the
ballot we didn't
[1:39:28] anything else before i move on to
citizen involvement recognizing we're
[1:39:32] coming up to
eight o'clock
[1:39:36] so this isn't really about
what the city can and can't do but i
[1:39:40] think it's important to talk to some of
these things too because it's about how
[1:39:43] we interact with the city
oh here we go so the only fundamental
[1:39:47] difference between a council member and
any other member
[1:39:51] is that they got more votes than we did
that's that's just it they put their
[1:39:54] name on their balance so there is
often no formal requirement for for
[1:40:01] council or orientation to actually
attend an orientation unless the city
[1:40:06] decides that there is so this is the
sort of thing that would show up in a
[1:40:09] code of conduct code of ethics by law
that thou shalt show up
[1:40:13] the municipal legislation is often
written such that and it may be in
[1:40:16] ontario it may not be wrong
says that the municipality has to offer
[1:40:21] an orientation but it doesn't actually
say anybody has to show up but that's so
[1:40:24] that's where the code of conduct comes
in and says thou shalt show up
[1:40:28] there is no requirement for candidate
training
[1:40:30] i we do a bunch of it but we talk about
it
[1:40:34] the desire for that is either to confirm
in those people who are running for the
[1:40:37] right reasons that they are running for
the right reason to maybe dissuade those
[1:40:41] people who are running for the wrong
reasons
[1:40:43] and to illuminate to people what the job
actually is so when we do candidate
[1:40:47] training we usually ask an outgoing
member of council who's declared that
[1:40:51] they're not running again to participate
and actually speak to what the reality
[1:40:54] of the situation is
something i would note here about uh
[1:40:59] just the vagaries of the year because
january to december is the is the
[1:41:04] council year or the fiscal year that
means the new budget and starts january
[1:41:08] 1st
if you have fall elections you bring in
[1:41:12] brand new people who conceivably have no
never worked in local government who may
[1:41:16] have never been elected to anything in
their lives who all of a sudden have to
[1:41:20] vote on a multi-million dollar budget
without any real knowledge of how to do
[1:41:23] it and to me that's one of the drawbacks
of the way our local government system
[1:41:27] is set up in canada so this isn't
anything that is specific to uh to
[1:41:31] ontario it is something that does
that does show up however
[1:41:37] so government doesn't stop just because
of the election cycle so there's a
[1:41:40] difference too between the head of that
beast the council and everybody else who
[1:41:44] working from the city manager on down
they just have to keep on going
[1:41:48] another principle here and one of mine
anyway is if i look at a council
[1:41:53] and this is this is accountability and
transparency does council keep
[1:41:57] everything public unless there's a
reason not to or
[1:42:00] does council keep everything private
unless they actually have to release it
[1:42:04] now you'd have to challenge individual
members of council with that but it does
[1:42:08] become cultural as well
because of the work that council members
[1:42:12] do in closed session or in camera
they by default know more about what's
[1:42:17] going on stratfor than anybody else
including their spouses hopefully
[1:42:21] because they are privy to the
information that's happening that
[1:42:25] solicitor client privilege that
negotiation on land sales
[1:42:28] all the the evaluation of the city
manager all those things happen
[1:42:32] privately and so the members of council
know more about it
[1:42:36] but my principle would be and i see this
too differently on candidates than on
[1:42:41] counselors candidates are all big on
transparency because they don't think
[1:42:45] we're having to see enough of what's
going on in the city however once people
[1:42:50] get on the other side of that table and
realize why things are the way they are
[1:42:54] they may not go all the way to say you
know what we need to keep a whole lot
[1:42:57] more things quiet than i thought we did
or private than i thought we did but
[1:43:01] they do start to understand why things
are the way they are and one of the
[1:43:04] frustrations might be that
because things are confidential you
[1:43:08] can't actually be told why they're
confidential just that they're
[1:43:10] confidential
another note here is about something
[1:43:14] when we do investigations into
municipalities that aren't working well
[1:43:16] we have this saying about it's never
about what it's about
[1:43:19] we're often addressing the symptoms of
something rather than the cause of
[1:43:22] something and so if we we often do
interviews as parts of these things but
[1:43:26] we often hear
essentially the same circumstance
[1:43:29] described in different ways
and
[1:43:33] things become self-evident facts
anytime there's a facebook group
[1:43:37] involved i'm suspicious for example or
anytime there's that group of
[1:43:42] you typically the old fellows who gather
down at the amw for coffee on tuesday
[1:43:45] mornings talking about common sense
they become self-evidently obvious
[1:43:50] because they're talking to themselves
so
[1:43:54] my encouragement in all these sorts of
things is get to know what how the other
[1:43:57] half lives or what the other side thinks
and that we'll talk a lot more about
[1:44:01] that in this session on engagement
and finally where you stand depends on
[1:44:05] where you sit
and this is the piece about
[1:44:08] what you see as a candidate or perhaps
as a citizen those of you who are here
[1:44:12] versus those who are council members and
i don't think we have any council
[1:44:15] members left here today but those who
are members of city council may see the
[1:44:20] same issue from a slightly different
perspective because they're sitting on a
[1:44:23] different side of the table
not better not worse just different and
[1:44:27] therefore able to perhaps some provide
some rationale to why things are the way
[1:44:31] they are
and then some of it becomes cultural too
[1:44:34] so if transparency if there's a
municipality that doesn't really fall on
[1:44:37] the side of transparency or
accountability at some point it's always
[1:44:40] been that way and that's where culture
takes hold and it's really hard to
[1:44:43] change culture once it's ingrained first
of all you have to realize it's there
[1:44:48] the only way you realize it's theirs by
looking somewhere else to find out what
[1:44:51] the culture is there so those are some
of the principles
[1:44:55] i kind of already dealt with a bunch of
these as well but
[1:44:58] the if we talk about some of the
concepts here about the tools that are
[1:45:01] available to you is accountability and
transparency now that is something that
[1:45:04] is required of you
not you specifically but of stratfor
[1:45:09] and
you can't again probably beat this one
[1:45:12] to death already about uh transparency
and accountability the use of in-camera
[1:45:16] sessions they're uh they're a legitimate
tool in local government in fact all
[1:45:19] governments if you think about it
local government is the only order of
[1:45:22] government in canada which does most of
their business in public
[1:45:25] you think of a caucus
caucus and cabinet solidarity at the
[1:45:28] provincial or federal orders of
government and almost nothing happens in
[1:45:32] public if you watch what's going on in
the legislature and house of commons a
[1:45:35] lot of that just seems to be for show
it's question periods sound bites that
[1:45:39] sort of thing
however local government has to do so
[1:45:42] much more in public than the other
orders do
[1:45:45] sometimes that raises the ire of people
too because the same discussions that
[1:45:49] would happen behind closed doors and
nobody's watching are now happening in
[1:45:52] public and people are standing have to
be accountable for some of the things
[1:45:55] that they say
when it does come to closed session
[1:45:59] we use the term land labor and legal and
that's really simplistic but there are
[1:46:04] there are very limited topics that can
actually be discussed in a closed
[1:46:07] session and they do kind of generally
deal with things like
[1:46:10] what we do with land purchasing or
zoning or or
[1:46:15] selling land or labor uh union
negotiations or the the city manager's
[1:46:20] annual performance review or legal if
the city is being sued or wants to sue
[1:46:24] somebody else or advice from the lawyer
those are the sorts of things that often
[1:46:27] happen in camera
however only the discussion can happen
[1:46:31] in camera if there's a decision that has
to be made that has to be made in public
[1:46:35] typically the only decision only emotion
or resolution that can be provided in
[1:46:40] camera is to come out of in camera
and so that's the only one that's
[1:46:43] actually recorded on in minutes of the
meeting
[1:46:46] and
some musicalities go further on this
[1:46:49] than others but the reason for going in
camera has to be provided and that
[1:46:53] usually that has to include a reference
to exceptions or exemptions from
[1:46:57] disclosure in the freedom of information
act
[1:46:59] some go further than that and actually
say what the topic was in general
[1:47:03] without giving away too much and some of
them will provide names of who actually
[1:47:07] was there the assumption being that
members of city council were there
[1:47:11] but they're the only ones who you should
assume that on
[1:47:14] city manager is often there some members
of city manager may be there to provide
[1:47:19] advice there may be some external people
for example i go i go into in camera if
[1:47:24] we're dealing with an organizational
review for example and sometimes my name
[1:47:27] shows up on the minutes and sometimes it
doesn't
[1:47:30] we're going to deal with engagement
specifically in session three
[1:47:33] but recognizing that engagement is a
two-way process it talks about how you
[1:47:39] deal with a city and how the city deals
with you whereas communication is more
[1:47:43] of a one-way it's the city telling you
what's going on there's something called
[1:47:47] an engaged continuum of engagement
that's produced by the international
[1:47:51] association of public participation or
iap2
[1:47:55] and it goes all the way from one end
about informing people so if you think
[1:47:58] about what's on the city's website or a
newsletter that you may get or something
[1:48:02] that shows up on a sign and it's just
pushing information to you that's one
[1:48:05] way the other end of this full spectrum
is actually empowering somebody else to
[1:48:10] make a decision so that's real
engagement but because we work because
[1:48:14] local government is government and the
final decision is councils it doesn't we
[1:48:18] don't go we don't go quite that far
council can take advice from people or
[1:48:23] groups and that's about as far down the
continuum we get i made a reference
[1:48:27] earlier to council and how they deal
with their own remuneration
[1:48:31] and that's where i see as close to
full-on engagement
[1:48:35] as you get the final decision of course
still resting with council so those are
[1:48:39] the topics we're going to talk about
next time
[1:48:42] if we think about engagement
i started off this whole session but if
[1:48:46] nobody lived where you do there would be
no need for stratfor there were no need
[1:48:49] for local government no need for staff
no need for budgets and property taxes
[1:48:54] so if you think about ways that you can
engage with your city these are some of
[1:48:57] the obvious ones perhaps some of the
less obvious ones of course there's a
[1:49:02] huge referendum that happens every four
years a little bit more if there's a
[1:49:06] by-election
somebody made a reference earlier about
[1:49:09] whether these are popularity contests
the larger the municipality the less
[1:49:12] it's a popularity contest in small
villages it often is a popularity
[1:49:17] contest or it's completely the opposite
i hate that guy so i'm not voting for
[1:49:20] them because i went to school with them
we had a fight out by the bike racks in
[1:49:23] 1964
so something to that effect
[1:49:26] you can get involved in council
committees council meetings and
[1:49:29] committees are by default open
so we call them public meetings because
[1:49:34] the public can watch government being
done not because the gov public can
[1:49:37] participate but it's just
being able to watch it
[1:49:41] some of the council committees will have
citizen reps on them
[1:49:45] oftentimes the advisory committee is an
economic development advisory committee
[1:49:48] or a recreation advisory committee will
have people on it
[1:49:52] you can actually go and speak to council
as a registered delegation which often
[1:49:56] you would have to provide a presentation
topic you want to talk about you'd be
[1:49:59] given x number of x number of minutes to
provide your presentation and maybe some
[1:50:03] time for questions afterwards
there's also public hearing statutory
[1:50:08] sometimes public hearings are required
by statute
[1:50:11] so in order for a bylaw to happen
between first and second reading or
[1:50:14] between second and third reading a
camera which you actually have to have
[1:50:17] an open hearing in which case anybody
who wants to have a say can
[1:50:22] some of these are non-statutory public
hearings which means
[1:50:25] that the cities just decided that it'd
be a good idea to hear from people and
[1:50:29] so the council has said yes for this
even though we don't have to we're going
[1:50:32] to open this
this issue to a public hearing
[1:50:36] sometimes there are open houses at which
the same four people generally appear
[1:50:40] some fewer and fewer places are using
those they can be virtual or they can be
[1:50:44] real they can have flip charts and
notice boards about a particular topic
[1:50:48] neighborhood revitalization or something
like that where you want to you want to
[1:50:51] meet and talk about something local
and then of course these are your
[1:50:54] counselors you can contact them directly
be nice to them and they'll uh get more
[1:51:00] flies with sugar than we do honey than
you do with uh screwed that one up
[1:51:03] completely than you do with vinegar
anyway
[1:51:05] so those are just ways that you can
engage
[1:51:08] just before we get on with what's going
on because we're coming to an end the
[1:51:12] end now there's a few more questions
here i'll get to
[1:51:16] uh or comments some of these are
actually comments uh
[1:51:20] conflict of interest acts says
particularly pecuniary interest
[1:51:24] and how you deal with it so we will
actually deal with that one of the
[1:51:28] interesting things about even peculiary
interests where financial conflict of
[1:51:31] interest if for example i is a citizen
who is also a city councilor own a piece
[1:51:36] of land and i want to say subdivide it
put two two infill houses onto one
[1:51:41] as a member of city council i can't vote
on that decision
[1:51:44] but as the land owner i still retain my
rights as the landowner and as a citizen
[1:51:49] so i could actually get up from my
council seat walk around sit down in on
[1:51:54] the in the council chamber and present
to council on that topic and be present
[1:51:58] through that debate because i don't lose
my rights as a citizen in the landlord
[1:52:03] so just a bit of a nuance to that
where are we
[1:52:08] commonwealth women's parliamentarians of
canada have good training materials
[1:52:11] called she should run they do
the federation of canadian
[1:52:14] municipalities has good material on
their website too
[1:52:17] and sometimes provincial municipal
associations do as well
[1:52:22] they're looking for a lot more
inclusivity and diversity on municipal
[1:52:26] councils
so there's a lot of work and effort and
[1:52:29] money being put into promoting the role
to those particular groups
[1:52:34] also note here from vicki about gray and
bruce counties offering training to
[1:52:37] female candidates about what it means to
be a municipal counselor
[1:52:41] elect her now dot ca
somebody note from jay decisions in
[1:52:46] camera are secret and not transparent
have happened what are the discipline
[1:52:50] measures if that is done
that's where you would get your
[1:52:53] integrity commissioner involved most
likely it's really difficult to prove
[1:52:57] however that that happens
because the informal decision if you
[1:53:01] like a straw vote sometimes does happen
but the formal decision has to be done
[1:53:05] publicly
one of the things we have found whenever
[1:53:08] we do investigations the first place we
start to look is what's got out of in
[1:53:11] camera that shouldn't have got out of in
camera
[1:53:15] whether that's something verbal or
something written you're not supposed to
[1:53:17] take notes you're not supposed to record
meetings somebody invariably puts their
[1:53:22] iphone on the table and turns it on
especially if we're in a virtual
[1:53:25] environment and nobody can really tell
what else is going on so that's one of
[1:53:28] the first places we look at a
dysfunctional municipality but what's
[1:53:30] come out of in camera that shouldn't so
it's to me that's one of the primary
[1:53:35] good governance concepts is
what needs to be what happens in camera
[1:53:40] needs to stay in camera
someone said i think counselor henderson
[1:53:44] and ceo thompson are still online if so
i'm not looking at very many people but
[1:53:48] that's fantastic if they are
and a note about who is to organize
[1:53:52] training of city for upcoming counselors
before the name goes on the ballot
[1:53:57] so this is one of those places
again a member of a citizen who meets
[1:54:02] the criteria for being eligible for
nomination can put their name on the
[1:54:05] ballot if they can come up with the
signatures in the deposit they don't
[1:54:08] move out of town
um
[1:54:11] anybody can do that and from then so
some of these websites that people have
[1:54:14] suggested are places that you can get
training
[1:54:17] sometimes municipalities will put on
training for candidates
[1:54:21] we do a lot of that
training for we do training typically
[1:54:24] before nomination date
so they can choose whether to continue
[1:54:28] with nomination or choose not to by the
time nomination day has passed and their
[1:54:32] name is on the ballot they bought signs
they're kind of committed so
[1:54:36] we typically do it before that happens
their ongoing professional development
[1:54:41] for council is important too because
they will usually do an orientation
[1:54:45] right after the election within a few
days of the election and it's the sort
[1:54:48] of stuff we're talking about today about
a whole lot more and in a whole lot more
[1:54:51] detail
and there's no way they can remember it
[1:54:54] all
so some municipalities will do ongoing
[1:54:57] professional development and have a
budget in the in the budget for training
[1:55:01] or counselors so they'll bring in a
registered parliamentarian to talk about
[1:55:04] meeting procedure or they're bringing
someone like me to talk about good
[1:55:07] governance or they'll bring in somebody
who's got a local local bent to talk
[1:55:11] about local issues
others will there are sometimes
[1:55:14] municipal associations offer elected
official training programs there are
[1:55:18] provincial and national conferences as
well that people can go to so there are
[1:55:21] all kinds of ways that the real public
servant who wants to serve their
[1:55:25] community better can do it and most of
them do it to some extent or another
[1:55:29] there are
some caveats to that sometimes city
[1:55:32] councilors want to go and do a like a
corporate directorship and have the city
[1:55:35] pay for that i'm a little iffy on
whether that's a legitimate expense or
[1:55:38] an mba
some of them will want to do a program
[1:55:42] of study and sometimes it's legitimate
but that's ultimately up to council to
[1:55:45] decide and some of those things can be
uh laid out in policy too
[1:55:49] a couple of notes here oversight
mechanisms as watchdogs so you've got
[1:55:54] your integrity commissioner members of
council are watchdogs on each other will
[1:55:58] you know when we deal with of interest
it's the whole question on ethics
[1:56:02] actually i'm doing an ethics session in
about an hour for a chamber of commerce
[1:56:06] board
uh and so there's a lot more that can be
[1:56:09] dealt with that but
the
[1:56:12] uh the city also retains final
decision-making authority and so that
[1:56:16] oversight has to be there as does a
relationship then between city council
[1:56:20] and city administration particularly the
city manager does the city manager have
[1:56:24] that real or
uh
[1:56:28] perceived
ability to push back on members of city
[1:56:32] council to remind them of things to talk
about things that perhaps are starting
[1:56:37] to go astray a lot of times they do they
wouldn't happen in a council meeting
[1:56:40] usually it'll be quiet conversation
maybe it's in camera maybe it's a
[1:56:44] one-on-one
those sort of things that would happen
[1:56:48] so many notes here too about some
sessions have been offered by sitting
[1:56:51] count city counselors collaboratively
and they're a great source of
[1:56:55] information and i mentioned when we do
candidate orientations we often bring in
[1:56:58] a a retired counselor to do that because
nobody knows it like they do or
[1:57:04] do i do certainly agree with that
somebody says bill says have to go at
[1:57:08] eight
good night bill we're gonna leave oh
[1:57:11] it's eight o'clock right now i forgot i
didn't actually realize what time it was
[1:57:13] just going through your questions here
[1:57:17] so if we if we look at that that's
something leave the questions for there
[1:57:22] and next time we get together we're
going to talk about role clarity so it's
[1:57:25] council talk start big and work down so
we're going to talk about council is the
[1:57:29] collective we're going to talk about the
office of the councillor the office of
[1:57:33] the mayor counselor and mayor are very
closely related they're both counselors
[1:57:37] and then we're going to talk about the
administration
[1:57:41] typically
but potentially some others as well i
[1:57:44] might throw a little bit in there too
to expand a little bit on conflict of
[1:57:47] interest but cuny your interest just
because a bunch of you have brought it
[1:57:50] up tonight and it wasn't something that
really fits in budget or into engagement
[1:57:55] so i'll see we can throw that a little
bit of that into what i will say as i
[1:57:58] was planning these sessions is this is
very similar to what we would do
[1:58:01] uh
council orientation
[1:58:05] whole lot more details not to be quite
circumspect on what it is we actually
[1:58:09] provide
so with that in mind the last item on
[1:58:13] note here thanks for the answers ken
thank you ken you and i should have
[1:58:17] another conversation we've got a ton of
questions here i appreciate the input to
[1:58:20] this before we before we pass before we
pass on that's the wrong way to say it
[1:58:24] before we leave this session
are there things that have worked for
[1:58:28] you that
now in terms of just the structure of
[1:58:31] this because i don't do this very often
are there things in terms of structure
[1:58:34] that need to change i don't know if
anybody has any thoughts on things
[1:58:37] they'd like to see done differently or
exactly the same
[1:58:41] things you liked or didn't like
you can put it in the chat or you just
[1:58:44] blurt it out
and as we go that i'm just going to move
[1:58:48] to my last slide here
which is sorry
[1:58:53] which is just my uh contact information
if you want it
[1:58:58] the mural behind actually an interesting
story here the mural behind this you
[1:59:02] can't really see very well actually it
was on the wall of town office in hay
[1:59:05] river northwest territories because i
get everywhere
[1:59:11] uh okay so some nice comments great
comments in the chat there's any last
[1:59:16] comments before we wrap up
[1:59:21] all right i gave you all your five
seconds you're all off ken you had your
[1:59:25] hand up thank you you're the first and
only person thus far who's actually put
[1:59:27] his hand up go ahead
you are muted though so
[1:59:31] oh is this oh that's just a clap you
didn't actually want to say anything
[1:59:34] it's just applause
oh thank you
[1:59:36] so really that's what i was after i was
just pulling so that you actually have
[1:59:39] to say something so i feel good about
myself
[1:59:42] so you've got my contact information
here if there is something that comes up
[1:59:46] tonight as you're ruminating over this
over the next few days and you want to
[1:59:50] ask me a question or things that ought
to be on a future session let me know
[1:59:53] as i started the beginning i really
applaud the city for
[1:59:57] uh going with this and doing something
because this isn't controlled so you can
[2:00:02] ask whatever questions you want and talk
about topics that you want to talk about
[2:00:05] because i'll talk about them all because
i really like this sector
[2:00:08] so
keep that in mind if you do have
[2:00:11] anything you want to talk about in the
next little while please contact me if
[2:00:15] not it sounds like we'll see some or all
of you in the next couple of weeks from
[2:00:18] now
if you enjoyed this and sounds like some
[2:00:21] of you did at least and a lot of you are
still here please let other people know
[2:00:24] the link and everything i think is on
the city's website
[2:00:27] and
have people come out we i'm quite happy
[2:00:31] to talk about the state of local
government
[2:00:34] in ontario specifically but in canada
more generally so
[2:00:37] if there's nothing else i will bid you
all good night
[2:00:40] and stop the recording and we'll see
where it all goes
[2:00:45] thanks so much
thanks everybody have a good night
[2:00:49] everybody