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By Victor Kaisar

To Ban or Not To Ban?

Kamloops councillors to decide fate of public inquires during council meetings

Jan 12, 2025 | 3:56 PM

KAMLOOPS — Kamloops City Councillors are set to decide whether to allow public inquiries to continue during regular meetings, or whether it should go on hiatus for a six-month trial period.

The Governance and Service Excellence Select Committee recommends taking a break as it argues people have plenty of other avenues to engage with council, including email, social media and the Let’s Talk page.

Tuesday (Jan. 14) afternoon, Council will also hear public submissions as it considers a series of changes to its Procedure Amendment Bylaw to try and shorten meetings that have on occasions dragged on for hours.

Among the bylaw changes being proposed are a limit of two delegations per council meeting, doing away with the approval of the agenda from regular meetings, and allowing councillors who are out of the country to remote into a closed meeting.

Councillors gave three readings to Bylaw 59-2 during their meeting on Dec. 10, 2024. If it is adopted Tuesday, councillors will then vote to decide the fate of public inquires.

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“I’m quite ready to just ban the damn thing,” Councillor Dale Bass, who chairs the Governance and Service Excellence Select Committee, said in November.

If the six-month pause is approved Tuesday, there will be no public inquiries during what’s already shaping up to be a marathon first meeting after the holiday break. Other items up for discussion include a proposed $150-million RCMP detachment and two letters from Minister Ravi Kahlon, one concerning Municipal Adviser Henry Braun’s report, and the other to do with the provincially-mandated housing targets.

If the pause is approved, which staff are recommending happens, public hearings and public submissions on city business like variance permits and liquor licence applications will still continue as required.

There has been a growing appetite from councillors in recent weeks to scrap public inquires, arguing it is “regularly dominated” by a small group of people who “do not ask questions of council and staff in good faith.”

“There’s a lot of opinions on items on our agenda but they’re not questions,” Councillor Bill Sarai said during a November committee meeting. “There’s no person ready to straighten that out and I think that’s where we’re struggling.”

Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson disagrees, and he has on numerous occasions failed to rein in speakers who have carried on past the time-limit or neglected to ask a question related to the agenda.

“Despite numerous efforts, challenges in Council Chambers continue,” an October 22 staff report said. “There have been comments from speakers during Public Inquiries that are contrary to the City’s legal requirement to provide a safe and respectful workplace.”

“Adding to the environment is that, at times, audience members create disruptions by commenting, pretending to vote on Council decisions, or expressing their approval or disapproval of various actions undertaken by the Mayor and Council.”

The push to remove public inquiries was kickstarted after a “Zoom-bombing” incident in September resulted in pornography being displayed to council and those watching the meeting online.

“Those are very regular occurrences,” Councillor Katie Neustaeter said in October, referencing instances where people have stuck out their tongues, pulled faces and given councillors the middle finger inside Council Chambers.

“I would say things like that have happened more often in these council meetings than not. It is almost every workday I have had sitting in this chair, I have experienced one or more of those things.”

Kamloops is one of a few B.C. municipalities that still allows public inquiries during council meetings, with people given five minutes to have their say. Other communities that have public inquiries have stricter rules like requiring people register in advance or limiting the time allowed across the board.

A snapshot of public inquiries at various municipalities in B.C. (Image Credit: City of Kamloops)

If City Councillors vote to scrap public inquires Tuesday, they’re expected to revisit the idea in six-months to determine whether it will be reinstated, and if so, what that will look like.

Under former mayor Mel Rothenburger for example, public inquiries were open to any topic, with the five-minute limit imposed by former Mayor Ken Christian.

“Council meetings are public in the sense that, unless closed for reasons specified in the Community Charter, they are required to be open to observation by the public,” the October staff report added. “Participation in Council meetings is limited to Council members, except where Administration is presenting or otherwise invited or required to speak, and where statute requires Council to invite input from community members.”

“Statute does not require a public inquiry or “question period” opportunity.”