EDITORIAL – Point of order on all those points of order in council meetings

An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

ANOTHER COUNCIL MEETING today (Aug. 27, 2024) broke down into chaos. If the mayor, councillors and staff would bone up on some basic procedural rules, and stick to them, it could be avoided. Or, at least, reduced.

First of all, consider all those points of order. Councillors somehow believe that when they raise a point of order, it means they have a right to get their way. So they raise points of order at the slightest whim on things that aren’t legitimate points of order at all.

A point of order is one of the tools participants in a meeting have to maintain decorum. They can raise a point of order if they believe the rules of procedure have been inadvertently broken or incorrectly applied.

It’s up to the chair of the meeting, the mayor, to rule on whether or not the point of order is justified.

“Although Members frequently rise claiming a point of order, genuine points of order rarely occur,” according to House of Commons Procedure and Practice. In most assemblies, Robert’s Rules of Order are used to maintain proper procedures, although in Canada some groups use a similar guideline called Bourinot’s Rules of Order.

The Kamloops council, instead of employing points of order to maintain decorum, uses it for the opposite effect.

When Coun. Nancy Bepple raised a point of order at today’s council meeting that Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson be removed as chair during public inquiries, it wasn’t a proper point of order at all.

Hamer-Jackson should have ruled the point of order out of order. It’s true that councillors could then have challenged the chair’s ruling and insisted on a vote. Instead, Bepple made a direct motion on the mayor’s removal and it was passed.

To some extent, such things get a bit nitpicky but, if applied properly, help avoid the breakdown of meetings like the one today. The mayor, unfortunately, has a habit of caving when challenged with a point of order. He doesn’t seem to understand he’s under no obligation to accept a point of order as valid, though he did try to push the point today.

Today’s chaos mainly had to do with the old issue of the counter-productive council rule that residents who speak under the Public Inquiries section of the agenda are limited to five minutes and must speak only on “matters that relate to the agenda.”

This isn’t a rule council is obligated by some higher authority to follow. It was invented in an attempt to keep public inquiries from becoming too long. So it was written into the procedure bylaw: “Five (5) minutes per individual and speaking opportunities are limited to questions about matters that relate to the agenda.”

However, council members and staff are all stumbling around trying to interpret on the fly what that means. At the Aug. 13 meeting, the question arose whether “matters that relate to the agenda” includes calendar items providing notice of upcoming meetings.

Today, Hamer-Jackson tried to give a broad interpretation of the meaning of “matters that relate to the agenda,” insisting that if the agenda mentions a committee meeting, topics that come under that committee’s mandate should be fair game for public inquiries at regular council meetings.

Others disagreed. Meeting calendars “are not on the agenda,” said Coun. Margot Middleton. A staff member even said the procedures bylaw doesn’t include calendar items as something that can be addressed during public inquiries.

In fact, though, there’s no mention in the procedures bylaw of what does or doesn’t qualify as a matter relating to the agenda.

If the council insists on sticking to its terrible “matters relating to the agenda” rule, it needs to define what it means. Otherwise, as logical as it might sound that notices of committee meetings shouldn’t be defined as “items on the agenda,” it has no leg to stand on with the way its handling public inquiries right now.

It shouldn’t be this tough. If a councillor has a proper point of order, clearly state what it is. The mayor should say the point is a proper one, or that it isn’t. Move on. Simple.

But, of course, nothing’s simple with this council.

Mel Rothenburger is a former regular contributor to CFJC-TV and CBC radio, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and a Webster Foundation Commentator of the Year finalist. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor.  He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.