Regina city council to discuss motion to increase transparency, reduce private meetings

Transparency at Regina council meetingsis set to take centre stage on Wednesday, thanks to a proposal from one of the city's councillors.

Ward 6 Coun. Daniel LeBlanc will introduce a motion at the upcoming council meetingthat calls for the city's governing body tocommit"to more transparent decision-making, including fewer secret meetings" at council and executive committee.

"The big thing about it is making it so elected council, rather than hired staff, are responsible for deciding what things need to be discussed and decided in private as opposed to in public," LeBlanc told CBC News during a recent interview.

He said that members of city administration are making decisions on what appears in public meetings, meaning it's harder to hold elected officials to account.

The motion outlines that according Section 14(1) to the city's Procedure Bylaw, all meetings of council are supposed tobe held in an open and public manner. Section14(2) of the bylaw also outlinesthat a meeting can only be moved to a private setting when the majority of councillors attending the meeting vote to do so.

LeBlanc said that both of those sections have been violated since Nov. 2020.

The motion alleges that administration officials routinelyplaced matters on a private agenda for the city's executive committeeand facilitated secret meetings of the executive committee held through email exchanges or other forms of non-public communication.

LeBlanc said one topic discussed this waywaswhat Regina should do about the statue of John A. MacDonaldatVictoria Park.

Despite the conversation containing no confidential or privileged information, the decision was made to discuss it privately, as the subject was politically charged.

"I don't think that's a good reason to shield from public eyes simply because something is controversial," LeBlanc said.

The statue was later quietly removed from Victoria Park.

"If councillorshave to publicly decide to discuss things in private, we're less likely to do it because I think there is rightly a political cost to pay most times for discussing things in private,"he said.

"That is a pretty good deterrent to non-transparent decision making."

Along with acall for fewer secret meetings, the motion call for the executive committee to implement a process where all matters coming before executive committee will be place on a publicly circulated agenda.Administration officials should make a comment at the public meeting if they believe something need to be debated publicly, the motion reads.

Materials that city administration thinks should not be shared publicly would not be placed on the agenda, but would be made available if the committee moves in-camera. A general summary of those materials would then be issued once the meeting returns to a public format.

In order to go into a private discussion, a councillor would have to make a motion to do so for council to vote on.

Regina city council is set to begin at 1 p.m. CST on Wednesday.