StratfordToday received the following open letter from resident Robert Roth in response to Councillor Jo-Dee Burbach's letter.
Hello Jo-Dee,
Regarding your open letter to Stratford Today of June 25, my apologies for being slow in getting back to you publicly, as I was out of town.
You are profoundly missing the point about the dysfunctional processes that are undermining free speech in Stratford and shutting down City Hall.
First of all, however, I do want to say that I appreciate your taking the time to respond to my open letter to all councillors. It is very thoughtful of you. Most of your colleagues had neither the courage nor conviction to reply at all, or simply sloughed off their responsibilities by sending little more than curt, flippant acknowledgments. Only you, Councillor Hunter and Councillor Sebben have chosen not to hide. Councillor Sebben, meanwhile, is the only one who agrees with me that something is very wrong in the processes at City Hall. It is disheartening that only one councillor in the City of Stratford is prepared to defend free speech.
You deserve the courtesy of a detailed reply.
YOU SAY:
“I can confidently say that the Clerk has done her job well and has followed the proper procedures for approving a delegation.... A delegation to Council must relate to something that is already on the agenda for that meeting.... As far as delegating and discussing a decision previously made by staff based on an existing policy, this is not within the purpose of Council, committee or sub-committee meetings. We are there to move forward the business of the corporation, and we cannot undo previous actions taken based on an existing policy.”
MY RESPONSE:
I’m not questioning the decision of the clerk. I’m questioning the process, itself. People should be allowed to question actions of their municipality even though such actions may not be “on the agenda.” Otherwise, in order to avoid accountability for actions, you simply keep them off the agenda. Or, alternatively, you simply slap the label of “administrative matter” on the action in order to shield it from public scrutiny – which is precisely how the Workplace Policy is being weaponized against free speech right now.
“A decision previously made” should certainly be open for public scrutiny, because it may be repeated. One of my central arguments is that decisions “made by staff” are, in fact, decisions made by council, as all authority flows downward from council. There is no such thing as an “administrative matter” that is beyond public scrutiny.
Sliding the ace of accountability up your sleeve is just a card shark’s sleight of hand. It does not absolve you of your moral responsibility – the card may be hidden, but you are still holding it. My open letter deals with that moral abdication of responsibility in some detail.
YOU SAY:
“...We cannot undo previous actions taken based on an existing policy.”
MY RESPONSE:
Of course you can. You can make a motion to rescind a previous motion. Over the past years, we’ve seen various levels of government pass retroactive “apologies” for a host of real or imagined injustices, some going back hundreds of years. More to the point, the issue to which I was referring, is an action still in effect. It is not “previous,” it is current. It can be rescinded in mid-stream.
YOU SAY:
“All municipalities in Ontario use a similar process and the purpose of Council meetings remains the same everywhere.”
MY RESPONSE:
That is simply not true. You forget, I’ve served on two different municipal councils. In one municipality, we actually had a half hour public forum at the top of the agenda where people could bring up anything. It did not have to be on the agenda nor did you have to go through committees first. It was our way of encouraging citizen interest and participation in the democratic process. Then, if appropriate, we sent the matter to the committee for more in-depth discussion. But we did let people have their say – come in the front door, so to speak – without having to wade through a deep bureaucracy of sub-committee, committee, full council, etc.
In fact, in my day in the Town of Aurora it was mandatory for proposals from developers to go to open council first, to ensure full transparency from stage one. Then they were referred back to committee. We did that to guarantee that everything was up front from the very start and no backroom deals could be hatched – the exact opposite of what Stratford did in the shameful Xinyi case. Hiding from the public and banning public scrutiny are hardly appropriate processes.
Sometimes I think we can get so close to an issue that we don’t really see it. Think about it, you are explaining and justifying a process that has literally brought the City’s business to a screeching halt. And you still think that is a sound process?
YOU SAY:
“With regards to your specific request to delegate, the Respectful Workplace Policy was brought to Council in May 2023, we considered it and approved the version of the policy that is being followed by staff. Many Ontario municipalities have a similar policy, it is not unique to Stratford.”
MY RESPONSE:
I can assure you that what is going on in Stratford with free speech bans and shut-down meetings certainly is “unique to Stratford.”
PLEASE, check out the case law as outlined in the Ontario Court of Appeal ruling in Bracken vs. Fort Erie regarding a citizen’s latitude in free speech. People are allowed to be angry and disrespectful. The court has ruled that a councillor’s or staff person’s “subjective feelings of disquiet, unease, and even fear”’ do not trump freedom of expression.
More to the point, using the workplace policy to ban citizens-at-large is illegal. Such policies only apply to employees. Again, read Bracken vs. Fort Erie. I quote:
“Although the OHSA (Ontario Health and Safety Act) imposes a duty on the town to take reasonable precautions to protect workers, it does not confer any powers on the town regarding the activities of someone who is not a coworker.” Bracken v. Fort Erie (Town) 2017 ONCA 668 (CanLII)
YOU SAY:
“What is not allowed while delegating at a public meeting are verbal assaults on identifiable individuals, whether they are staff, councillors, or other members of the public.”
MY RESPONSE:
In fact, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms does give citizens the right to “verbal assaults” on their elected officials. Again, I urge you to check the case law noted above.
Citizens can use very fierce and extreme language in challenging individual politicians. There is no requirement to “respect” politicians. In the Bracken case, for example, councillors were called “liars and communists.” In a democracy, the widest possible latitude is given to free speech.
Therein lies the central flaw in all of council’s thinking – that they are entitled to respect rather than having to earn it.
How respectful is it, for example, to violate the Ontario Municipal Act over and over again by holding illegal closed meetings, as Stratford council has done in the past? It is the people of Stratford who are being offended and disrespected. And we are still awaiting an apology for this humiliation. Instead, council is demeaning democracy even further by banning free speech in the council chambers.
MY CONCLUSION:
In my opinion, and based on the court rulings, Stratford City council is acting both immorally and illegally in using the workplace policy against members of the general public.
Also, the councillors are abdicating their responsibilities by delegating authority to staff to take actions against the citizenry and then using such delegation of authority as a way of avoiding accountability.
In short, I understand the processes you have been kind enough to explain to me. My point, however, is that they are flawed processes and profoundly anti-democratic. They should be changed.
Thanks again for taking the time to respond. I do appreciate it.
Robert Roth
