Closed meetings re-examined

By Graeme McNaughton/The Oshawa Express

The region is putting the rules on closed meetings out for everyone to see.

Passed at the latest meeting of regional council, the new closed meeting protocol lays out what exactly the rules are for closed meetings, including how and when they can be called.

The rules, however, are not anything new to councillors.

“This really isn’t a change. The law regarding closed meetings or when meetings can be closed to the public has not changed. This is really just more of a further manifestation of the region’s desire to be open and transparent. We’re well aware the issue of meetings being closed to the public can, at times, be controversial, albeit entirely legitimate,” Matthew Gaskell, the region’s commissioner of corporate services, told The Oshawa Express prior to the protocol being passed.

“We thought there would be some value, both internally to the organization and externally to the public, to set out what the rules are for going into closed session and to also give some guidance to staff internally to remind them that when, at all possible, we try to be as open as possible and to give a number of options to have at least some information available in the open session so that the public can be aware of what’s being discussed.”

Gaskell also said the protocol was proactive, rather than reactive to public complaints.

“It’s not a reaction to either Bill 8 or energy from waste. We’re really making an effort to be more open and transparent and to explain to the public why we do what we do sometimes. This is what this is,” he said.

The Oshawa Express recently learned that closed meetings surrounding the incinerator – one on Dec. 22 and another on Jan. 27 – are under investigation following two separate complaints from the public to the clerk’s office. As per regional policy, those two meetings are now under investigation by the region’s closed meeting investigator, Local Authority Services, a Toronto-based company formed in 1992 by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario.

Judy Dezell, LAS’ director, previously told The Oshawa Express that a report on the meetings isn’t expected for at least a month.

Under the new protocol, the region’s legislative services branch will also be producing an annual report on closed meetings.

Get it on tape

When the protocol was first brought up at the finance and administration committee, Councillor Nancy Diamond suggested the region should look at recording its closed meetings in the event of a complaint being filed, as is the current process in Oshawa.

“There are 17 municipalities in Ontario out of 444 who record their closed meetings. Just an audio recording. This has saved us an enormous amount of work because all you do, with the exception of client-solicitor privilege items, is just give the tape to the ombudsman, and the ombudsman says, ‘everything is fine, everything was done,’” Diamond said at the meeting.

“We have found it very useful, and it also ties in if we have outside people at the meeting,” she added later on in the committee meeting.

Gaskell reiterated his response to Diamond to The Oshawa Express, saying that recording meetings could confuse matters in the long run, adding that under provincial law, the written minutes made by the clerk are the official record of a meeting.

“That is the official record of what transpires in a public meeting. So, when you have a video or audio recording, which is the official record? Is it, legally, what the clerk has recorded as to what transpired at the meeting, or is it this recording? That’s where I have the problem,” he said.

“The law has provided what the official record is, and that’s what I believe is what we should be sticking to.”

Councillor Joe Neal of Clarington attempted to bring the idea of recording meetings back into discussion when the protocol was up for a vote at regional council.

His motion to refer a proposal for recording closed meetings back to staff was voted down by a majority of councillors.