Council Election Reforms Needed

Fellow Greens,

From the feedback I received in email discussions and from conversations with members on the floor of the BGM held in Toronto, many of us were “challenged” by the last Bonser ballot presented to us for our consideration as members. 

The sheer number of resolutions was overwhelming with much confusion and consternation as to the overlap of several of the resolutions, argumentation about the appropriateness of Party Committee commentary on resolutions, and clearly not enough information from the candidates for council to make an “informed” decision. The comment I heard most was -paraphrased - "Who are these people that are running for Council and how can I vote for them if I don't know them?"

 With the move to streamline the size of council having passed at this BGM, the importance of knowing who these candidates are and what they believe the direction of the party to be and what they have to offer in realizing their visions is not served with a simple one page biography.

It was felt by a number of folks, myself included, that we need to be able to engage these prospective leaders of the party in a dialog. To be able to ask questions of those who would lead us in an open forum benefits all of us and the party as a whole. This at present does not exist for GPC members.

It came to my attention towards the closure of the BGM that there is in essence, a “gag order” on our council members preventing them from openly expressing opinion of other councillors or campaigning for or on behalf of another councillor or members of the party seeking a council role.

This is a political party - not a city council trying to prevent litigation and libel infringements because of a lack of parliamentary privilege at city hall. I can see the need for this in other organisations such as a city council where directly opposing views would put the members at constant odds – but not in our organization where we are governed by  Green principles and a code of conduct as a condition of membership - it is not necessary and anti-democratic.

This council motion effectively prohibits one councillor from speaking of their experience with another councillor to anyone else in the party.

It further prohibits their free speech and a group of councillors from running as a “team” or a slate linked by vision and goals. We might even save some paper allowing a team to campaign together. The worry expressed in debate over my emergency motion, is that these are bad things , leading to hostility and bad feelings.

I think that as Greens the default assumption has to be that people are good and respectful of each other and we accept the expressed will of our membership.

People uniting behind ideas or a common vision for our party is not a bad thing – arguably - desirable. Why is council defaulting to think that members of council would act otherwise contrary to the Green principles and code of conduct?

There is a need for further reform to our elections process and procedures and Council needs to be encouraged to do this.

We need to have an opportunity to ask questions of our would be leaders in open forum such as a webcast candidates forum or at the very least a conference call prior to the issuance of the Bonser Ballot.

Councillors should be free to speak of their actual experience with other Councillor incumbents and of other members of the party who seek positions on council, and permitted to campaign for and on behalf of others towards the building of a unified vision of governance and direction for the party and of course within the confines of the code of conduct.

Members need to be given ample opportunity to question in open forum the would be councillors. Without that openness of forum anything can be said or promised to anyone for either the right or wrong reasons - in essence everything is done behind closed doors as it presently stands. If we are going to choose the best to lead us this forum must be created for all future council elections. It needs to and must start with the next round of elections.

As to our BGM workshop process, some thought needs to be given to the merits of returning a resolution to the plenary session from a workshop that clearly doesn't have the support of the workshop.

We spent a lot of time double debating with repetition of the argumentation over and over again this way. Workshops should be the final opportunity to change wording but not intent of motions that would give it a chance to survive a plenary vote. If it fails in workshop to achieve that majority support it should die there.

In essence then, the work done in workshops is really just an opportunity to practice and hone argumentation to be repeated on the floor of the plenary session. This is a waste of our collective time.

I believe in this Party and in democratic debate and discussion and we need to allow the broadest possible opportunity for all voices to be heard and questions asked and answered. Even those who are serving us on Council.

Winnipeg Centre

Drew Fenwick