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Broken shells
Are Canada’s municipal councils grappling with a new climate of hostility, from within and without? Such was the claim made in a weekend story in the Globe and Mail. It wasn’t posed as a question— but rather as a reported fact.
The evidence presented is a mix of anecdotal— Whitby, Sarnia, St. Stephen, NB and Kamloops—as well as survey data indicating that as many as twothirds of local politicians who responded said they had experienced harassment. In Quebec, roughly onethird had considered quitting since the 2021 election. It sounds rough.
But is it true? Are municipal politics functioning under a “new climate of hostility”? Count me as skeptical.
This newspaper doesn’t have the resources to examine the examples offered in the Globe’s story, either to look at the context, history and issues it uses to highlight the writer’s newly discovered phenomenon or to discern if it all adds up to a trend or a threatening virus to our public discourse. (In truth, the Globe writers don’t offer much in the way of historical context either, which is problematic when purporting to shine a spotlight on a sociological trend described as “new”.)
I have been a faithful observer of local politics in Prince Edward County for 22 years. I don’t see a trend toward a “new climate of hostility”. It gets hot. It can get mean-spirited, particularly in the fourth year of the term. Irritation rises. Grudges build up. The discourse falls into well-worn (read tiresome) patterns. Labels displace argument.
In my two and a bit decades on the sidelines, I have witnessed racial slurs, near fist fights, and armed OPP officers in the council chambers standing guard to keep opposing viewpoints segregated. Angry exchanges on the steps of Shire Hall are—if not common—not unusual either.
Local politics has long (forever?) been punctuated by passionate and sometimes poorly expressed debate.
The Globe story writers, and those who wring their hands about social media, don’t offer a remedy. Their self-righteous act of worrying in print is meant to serve as a sufficient salve. Properly admonished, the humans will return to a discourse the writers deem honourable and proper.
The truth is that councils frequently deal with matters that reach into the lives of folks who otherwise have no interest or experience with government. When folks learn they can’t build a home on the land they bought and paid for, they tend to respond negatively. Often in tears. Sometimes in angry outbursts.
When their dreams are derailed by council because: A) a developer owns all the remaining capacity in the water system, B) an empty, unused barn is situated on nearby land, or C) someone spotted an eastern whippoorwill on their property, temperatures tend to hot up. None of this is new.
When taxes rise sixfold over a couple of decades while family income remains stagnant, folks are bound to react badly. They are likely to take it out on the folks who made these decisions. None of it is surprising. Nor new.
None of this, either, is an excuse for the truly obnoxious, relentless and foul personal attacks made by some. Nor for accosting our representatives in the grocery store.
There is something a bit off, however, by the implied desire to return to a mythical past—as if there was a noble period in which councils hammered out differences under Marquis de Queensbury rules over tea and cucumber sandwiches.
’Twas never thus.
In the good old days, local politics tended to be the exclusive domain of a close-knit group of men (almost always men) who demanded loyalty and deference in return for their wise service. Men who would not brook outside scrutiny between election days.
These men tended to sort issues in hushed backrooms long before they entered the council chambers. Decision-making was largely shaped by the cabal’s self-interest. If you didn’t like it you had one shot every four years to topple the regime. But you had better be successful or else brace for retribution.
There never was a golden age. Democracy has always been messy. It has always been performed with pointed sticks. And caustic words.
Can we be more civil? Sure. Has the Covid/Trump/social media coarsened public debate? Likely. But is what the Globe describes a permanent condition? A worsening trend? Is it bound to get worse until we push Piggy off the cliff? Until rational discourse is shattered like the shell in Lord of the Flies?
I doubt it.
Temperatures ebb and flow in council politics. Worry more when things go quiet.
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