Burnaby First Coalition supporter Rick McGowan wanted to ask the City of Burnaby about its long-awaited collective agreement with CUPE Local 23.
After some back and forth, the city obliged – on the condition that his comments be made behind closed doors.
McGowan, a former Burnaby council candidate for the Green Party of B.C., says his recent request to appear as a delegation at the June 23 council meeting has been accepted, but rather than behind held during the public portion, McGowan was told he’d have to appear before Mayor Derek Corrigan and his councillors at a closed meeting.
According to a BFC press release, he was also asked to submit his presentation prior to the meeting.
“First, staff told me council prefers that I appear as a ‘private citizen’ rather than as a member of an organized political party,” said McGowan in a statement. “Now they want me to meet them in secret and submit my presentation beforehand. Our request for transparency seems to be a challenge.”
McGowan was looking to discuss the city and the union’s collective agreement, which outlines union terms for city employees from the start of 2012 to the end of 2015. McGowan says he hit a number of road blocks in trying to obtain a copy of the four-year contract – from incorrect email addresses to outdated documents – ever since it was ratified in December 2012.
He said the city did not respond within the provincially allotted 30 days to a freedom of information request he filed in February, and later refused the request, noting the document would be available “once the review process is complete.”
Under the act, municipalities can deny FOI requests if the information will be released within 60 days of receiving the request. McGowan says that 60 days came and went, but once he and other members of the coalition submitted their delegation application – to question “the secrecy that continues to shroud this major civic expense in a civic election year” – the document was promptly published on CUPE 23’s website.
“I think we put some pressure on them,” McGowan told the NOW. “I think part of the reason that it got released was because of the BFC, myself and the media.”
But, while the collective agreement is in the public domain, deputy city manager Chad Turpin said the decision to place the delegation in a closed council meeting is based on the B.C. government’s Community Charter, which outlines topics that are only designated for in-camera meetings.
“Under the Community Charter, the provincial government spells out what you can discuss in-camera,” said Turpin, listing employee contract negotiations, staff personnel issues and land purchases as examples of items limited to in-camera discussions. “It’s not really a City of Burnaby decision, it’s a Community Charter decision.”
He said it’s not uncommon for the city to have delegations in closed meetings, especially when the delegation is vague on what they would like to discuss.
“It’s really hard to determine what a delegation wants when they give you one line,” he said. “This delegation was not specific in what they wanted to talk about other than contract negotiations in the CUPE contract. That puts it into an in-camera situation.”
As of Thursday, McGowan has declined to appear at the closed meeting in protest of “the systemic lack of transparency” from the city.
“BFC is concerned that for six years, there has been no authentic political debate in council chambers between organized political parties because the mayor and all councillors belong to the NDP’s Burnaby Citizens Association,” stated the coalition. “And it seems that this is set to continue at Monday’s council meeting.”
