A perfect storm

Tempers boil over at Shire Hall

The story begins with a tempest—perhaps unfairly. For this ship was doomed before it left port—tossed by elements conjured by fates rather than mortals.

Council meets as a committee just once in July and August—an odd artifact of amalgamation that presumes the business of the $50-million municipality slows down in the summer months. The result is that council members faced a 300-page agenda package when they entered chambers at Shire Hall on Thursday. Making matters worse, council had also arranged to meet with its legal counsel regarding its standing in the appeal of wpd Canada’s plan to construct as many as 29 industrial wind turbines in South Marysburgh. Sensing perhaps they would have some spare time during the day, Council also set a session to consider plans for public engagement around the size of council into the overstuffed schedule.

But they did have soup. And sandwiches.

Despite the warm lunch, council members grew increasingly irritated as the afternoon session wore on. Talking about the size of council tends to draw out testy conflict in the best of circumstances. But this was pretty straightforward stuff—approving the wording of a public survey and backgrounder documents to be provided at a series of public meetings next month. Some councillors, however, saw conspiracy and manipulation in every phrase in the survey and backgrounder.

One example: Where it outlined the purpose of the public meetings to potential participants, the backgrounder language noted “an OMB hearing was held and subsequently led to the following ‘Question’ being included on the Ballot for the 2010 municipal election.”

Some councillors complained this phrasing distorted reality. That language, according to councillor Dianne O’Brien, lost some of the nuance that unfolded between the OMB adjudicator’s ruling and council’s decision to turn the issue over to its citizens. Could staff rewrite it? The clerk struggled to understand what wording the councillor wanted instead.

“It’s misleading,” said O’Brien, unhelpfully for the fourth time.

Corporate services commissioner Susan Turnbull finally stepped in.

“We have worked hard to make this document as objective and unbiased as we can,” said Turnbull. “We have done our best. If the councillor wants to revise it, she is encouraged to draft new language and have it passed as an amendment.”

O’Brien suggested inserting a period after the word ‘held’, thereby deleting the linkage of the OMB hearing to the ballot question.

Councillor Gord Fox jumped in to say the proposed revision and the discussion of the tattered history of this debate was irrelevant.

“It is what we are going to do now that is important,” said Fox. “That is all that is relevant.”

With that, O’Brien withdrew her motion.

It might have ended there, but councillor Janice Maynard had a long list of questions. She worried the order of potential options was stacked against the status quo. If it wasn’t the first option, she wanted the order chosen randomly—out of a hat. Maynard was uneasy that the proposed meeting facilitators were both from the County and might bring their biases to the task of meeting management. Neither did she like the idea that participants would be asked, though not required, to sign in.

She wanted, also, a reference made about the province’s approval of council and ward structure at amalgamation. She was advised that although staff had investigated this claim, they could find nothing to substantiate it and therefore could not include it in the document.

Maynard had more concerns: among them that the list of pros and cons provided by the author of each proposal to reduce the size of council were subjective. She, and other councillors, wanted to rewrite the lists, or have them stricken from the document. Maynard also wanted removed from the document the Ontario Municipal Board’s list of principles when considering electoral boundaries and council formation.

There was very little in the five-page information primer that Maynard and others found acceptable.

With each fresh line of inquiry, tempers continued to fray.

Several councillors said the document had been well-crafted and was unbiased.

“It could not have been worded any better,” said Councillor Kevin Gale.

Councillor Bill Roberts urged his colleagues to rely on the professionalism of staff and to appreciate the balance and clarity displayed in distilling nearly a decade of debate into a few pages.

Councillor Treat Hull suggested it was unlikely council would improve the backgrounder or survey.

“This is good work,” said Hull. “I am not sure that an editorial committee of 15 will make this better.”

Undeterred, Maynard pressed on. Mayor Robert Quaiff, by then, had become visibly weary of the councillor’s apparent wish to rewrite the documents line-byline.

“You’re not finished?” asked Quaiff.

“No,” said Maynard tersely.

Then the debate turned back to the elimination of the author’s pros and cons attached to each option.

“They are not factually correct,” suggested Maynard. “The easiest thing is to delete them.”

His emotions never far from the surface, Councillor Jamie Forrester complained that Maynard’s motions were being batted down as fast as she could make them.

“I came to this discussion with an open mind,” said Forrester. “But I don’t see any open mindedness around this table.”

Councillor Roy Pennell chimed in saying the entire list should go.

“It fogs the issue,” said Pennell.

That was it. Councillor Jim Dunlop had heard enough.

“For once, I would like a councillor from Ameliasburgh to vote in favour of the entire County,” said Dunlop.

Tempers, already running high, boiled over. Maynard stood up and walked out of the chamber, with O’Brien and Pennell right behind her. Councillors Forrester and Harrison joined the protest and left the chamber.

Some weren’t quite sure whether they should continue. But Mayor Quaiff assured remaining council members that they still had a quorum and they would finish the meeting.

Gord Fox offered a calm perspective that was largely missing in the earlier discussion.

“The people of Prince Edward County know what they want,” said Fox. “People are not going to be confused by which order the options are presented or by the words we use to describe them. Our community is smarter than that.”

The remainder of the meeting went smoothly enough. There was, however, no talk about turning back. The survey will be online and available at County libraries and Shire Hall beginning September 1. Public meetings begin in Bloomfield on September 1, and finish in South Marysburgh on September 30. (For a complete list see sidebar.)

Not done, council then had to reconvene as a committee to finish the agenda left over from the morning. Councillors Pennell, Forrester and Harrison rejoined the meeting.

Dunlop apologized for his remark. And business moved on.