OPINION: Resignations, Abstentions & Backyard Chickens

New biweekly column summarizing recent political news.

I’m hoping this will be a weekly (or biweekly) column where I can share my thoughts and opinion on municipal matters of the preceding week or two. The goal of this platform is to provide the news and ask the questions that other media does not. But I try to keep my opinion out of the actual reporting and share it in columns such as this one. So, here goes for my first try.

Resignations

The biggest political local news item of the week and likely of the year so far in 2024 is the sudden resignation of Lavigne councillor Jerome Courchesne. I was the first to report on this news after I found out about it Tuesday night.

It appears that Courchesne had intended to let the public know over a week ago in a letter dated April 5th. In his letter that was apparently first sent to the mayor, he tries to comfort the public by referencing the upcoming eclipse (that occured last Monday).

It’s still not clear why the mayor chose to (or advised Jerome) to keep this letter or information from the public. Because most councillors and staff did not become aware until Tuesday. When I found out through multiple anonymous sources, I contacted Courchesne for a comment but he ignored my messages.

Then an hour after I published the news and five days after his official resignation letter was sent, he finally told the public.

I do want to respect people’s privacy, but a resignation as an elected official is not a private matter and the mayor/staff/council should not have attempted to hold onto this information for as long as they did. I assume they were still trying to figure out the best way to spin this resignation/municipal hiring or maybe the mayor was looking for a head start on recruiting a new candidate for the Lavigne ward.

Although I’d like to congratulate someone on a new position, I am not satisfied that this is a justifiable reason to break the commitment one makes when they decide to take on the role of a councillor. The term is only four years. I understand family matters or emergencies can arise forcing people to resign. But, what appears to be like a junior level administrative job (which could have been sought at a number of places), is not a good enough reason to break this commitment made to the people of West Nipissing.

If the job of councillor was just too hard or there was some other reason he could no longer stay, then the right thing to do is just be honest.

Lastly on this subject, the fact that this councillor was chosen to be on the Au Chateau board last year and has not challenged that administration or voted against any recommendations begs the question of a conflict of interest.

If Courchesne would have refused to support the new vaccine policy approved in November or had questioned other policies (as some board members have done as is there job…), would he still have been hired by this administration?

I don’t believe so.

Abstentions & Cowardness

After council approved the controversial Short-Term Rental Bylaw last week, there has been a lot of criticism of councillors who refused to listen or even acknowledge a petition signed by nearly 1000 people.

A lot of people have also questioned two councillors who abstained from the vote. Either of which could have created a 4-4 tie and defeated the bylaw.

Councillor Kris Rivard is still clinging to his extremely short statement that he simply cannot vote on this type of matter because his employer (the North Bay Mattawa Conservation Authority) will likely see a very tiny uptick in inspection requests after this bylaw is passed.

When pressed, Rivard has admitted that he did not even ask the integrity commissioner if he was in fact in a conflict (the IC would have most certainly told him NO). The fact is his employer is a non-profit which covers a vast territory. The North Bay-Mattawa Conservation Authority (NBMCA) has a budget of over $5M with almost all of it being government grants, municipal levies and other public funding. Only 28% of their budget is revenue from inspections (with only a tiny portion of this being in West Nipissing)*. This makes sense since they are a non-profit service.

*West Nipissing is so insignificant to the NBMCA that our municipality doesn’t even have a seat on their board or provide them with any funding like the 10 other neighbouring municipalities do (North Bay, Bionfield, Callander, Powassan etc)

The idea that the NBMCA or Rivard would somehow benefit financially from this bylaw passing or not is absolutely absurd. It’s clear that Rivard did not want to take a position on the matter to risk upsetting one side or the other.

North Bay-Mattawa Conservation Authority 2024 Budget

It’s also come to my attention that when council had a 20 minute debate on deciding if they should oppose provincial Bill 23 (More Homes Built Faster Act) in 2023, Rivard led discussions, voted and did not declare any conflict of interest.

Bill 23 was widely criticized by Conservation Authorities which led to many municipalities to pass formal resolutions opposing the bill. Even though this motion was being passed directly to help his employer financially, Rivard did not abstain.

Last month council discussed a financial request from a local school board of which councillor Daniel Gagne is employed. Rightfully, he never recused himself. Why? Because like Rivard he does not stand to benefit financially or in any other way from the council business discussed.

In both cases the councillors work for non-profits, do not get paid on commission and the motions contribute microscopic differences in revenues for their employers.

There is a reason why Rivard did not consult the Integrity Commissioner. Because he did not want to hear the truth: That he should in fact be voting. He was looking for an easy way to avoid taking a position on controversial topic or upsetting the mayor or other councillors by voting against them.

One constituent who asked Rivard for clarification was told by him that he also plans on recusing himself of all discussion on the upcoming trailer bylaw deliberations as well. It appears Rivard is simply hoping to get to through his 4-year term without taking a position or having an opinion on a single matter (he’s been successful for nearly two years now) before replacing MPP John Vanthof as this district’s provincial representative in Parliament.

Similarity, Councillor Roch St-Louis also did not vote because he missed the meeting entirely. When pressed by some constituents, St-Louis claimed he was out-of-town and could not make the meeting.

Unless St-Louis has no idea how conference calls work, this excuse is a terrible one. Especially considering the importance of the matter discussed at the meeting in question. A week later (on April 9th), while still appearing to be “out-of-town”, St-Louis attended a Planning Advisory Meeting (St-Louis appears to be calling from a hotel room while the meeting is held in council chambers).

Why would he choose to remotely attend that meeting but skip out on the council meeting? Well for one, he probably also wanted to avoid taking a position on this controversial matter. And second, the Planning Advisory Committee only meets four times per year and St-Louis missed the last meeting back in October. Skipping out on over 6 months of meetings would have definitely been noticed and St-Louis likely did not want to risk that. So he attended remotely despite being “out-of-town”. Knowing there would be no difficult decisions to make…

St-Louis also skipped last month’s Committee of Adjustments meeting.

I understand that these topics are controversial and by taking a position, councillors risk upsetting one side or the other. But when they decided to become councillors they had to accept that fact. They cannot abdicate their duty to represent constituents just because they want to protect their long-term political aspirations.

Backyard Chickens

I posted on Facebook about the frustrating nature of the new online survey to solicit resident feedback on backyard chickens and made many people aware. Dozens of people have also commented on the municipal Facebook page making them aware of the flaws and bias of the survey.

Municipal staff have since corrected the survey allowing residents to skip question 4, however the survey is still heavily biased towards soliciting negative responses. And for the first 24 hours of the survey, only those with concerns could actually submit their responses.

Next month when staff present their findings to council they will gladly state that most respondents had at least one concern with backyard chickens. They will then share the “survey feedback” which will only be negative responses since the only solicitation for written feedback is with regards to concerns. No feedback is sought from those supporting backyard chickens.

The thing that is most concerning about this survey is that one of the four questions asks the public to state if “they feel chickens should be allowed in rural residential zones”. This is an unnecessary and overarching question. Chickens are already legally allowed in rural residential zones. Many West Nipissing residents including myself own chickens responsibly.

When council discussed this topic, the point was to help expand chicken ownership to urban settings. Not to add restrictions to those in rural settings. If the city does establish a backyard chicken bylaw, will rural folks like me have to get a $750 licence just to raise our own hens and eat our own eggs?

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