Letters to The Sun, November 4, 2021: We Deserve Strong and Responsible Local Governments

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We are one year away from a municipal election, and the lack of safe and inclusive spaces on school councils and boards is appalling. In the past year, I heard about many cases where elected officials had to deal with harassment, assault, and disrespect, both from the public and from their colleagues on the council. We have had councilors and school trustees in BC resign due to systemic racism. We had a mayor accused of spreading conspiracy theories that put his community at risk and called for his resignation by his council. We have had an acting mayor charged with sexual assault and we will still be allowed to serve while he was involved in the resulting trial.

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And what scares me the most is that nobody seems to care.

Why doesn’t the community hold elected officials accountable for their actions? Why isn’t the community outraged to hear elected officials resign due to unsafe and oppressive conditions? Why is the province too slow to protect those who find themselves in a poisoned workplace with nowhere to go for fair and reliable resolutions? Why isn’t the media reporting these aggravated issues for elected officials and the resulting negative effect on our communities?

Local governments are the closest to the people in our communities and deal with some of the most pressing issues in our daily lives. Everything from building sidewalks and roads to providing basic services like garbage collection and recycling to managing how our community grows and how our children learn. Yet despite the importance and daily dependency on a functioning city, we do not seem to care enough to ensure that the people who make decisions on our behalf do so in a safe and equitable place. And it’s starting to seem like “we” don’t really care who does this job. Is that really true?

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In the last municipal elections, I worked hard for months to get two women of color elected in my community. I cannot express enough the difference these women have made in our community, at the council table, and for me, another elected official. Having diverse people chosen in our communities is of great importance to the health of our cities. It cannot be underestimated how much our systems and cities will improve with the contributions of “other” voices.

When these people are silenced (which is the case in many municipalities), or when a request for cultural awareness training for the mayor and council is rejected and a councilman resigns (sound familiar, Terrace?), Or we see the resignation of a school board president because, “As a First Nations leader, I can say that my voice was not meant to be at the table” (former school board president Trent Derrick in Prince George), it will be very difficult to encourage diverse or marginalized people to consider doing this job. It is becoming increasingly obvious that working as an elected official is not a safe place for diverse voices. This is tremendously troublesome.

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We deserve strong and responsible local governments. We deserve amazing people to feel safe and supported enough to come forward with their names and to be able to safely contribute to their work. We deserve a diverse variety of voices and life experiences that work on our behalf. There is a simple solution to improve accountability and create better work environments for people who choose to serve their communities.

Several provinces have instituted municipal integrity commissioners, including Ontario and Alberta, and BC should do the same. This commissioner must be appointed by the province and be competent to investigate complaints made by the public, city staff as complainants, or other elected officials. By appointing an integrity commissioner, the province would indicate that they are trying to make it possible for any member of our community to serve on the boards of local government. They would also create a process for community members to raise legitimate concerns through a process that is consistent, fair and transparent.

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Collectively, we must tell the province that we want and need this oversight and responsibility. We as elected officials must advocate for this with our local MLAs. We need the public to question the lack of representation in their communities and why various voices are being silenced or forced to leave their work. We must all pay attention and demand that the system be improved.

The next municipal elections are less than a year away, and while 2018 saw a marginal increase in diversity at the council and school board tables, after the last two years we are seeing those gains fade and 2022 looks bleak. This is scary to me and it should be scary to you too.

Mary Trentadue, City Councilor, New Westminster

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