EDITORIAL – New rules for public inquiries better than nothing but…
Community Services Officer stands watch during City council meeting. (Image: Mel Rothenburger)
An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.
THE NEW FORMAT for public inquiries at Kamloops City council meetings is better than nothing but the council shouldn’t be patting itself on the back over it.
At Tuesday’s committee of the whole meeting, councillors voted to bring back public inquiries after a two-month pause, but with a new set of rules proposed by staff. Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson wanted inquiries back, but under the old guidelines.
When they return to the agenda in May, after formal adoption by council, they’ll be limited to two minutes each at the lectern, with a maximum of five speakers. Not only that, you have to get on a list in advance.
The changes come after some bumbling around on what to do about poor behaviour by some residents at the meetings. We’ll have to see how effective the new format is and whether it makes council feel better protected from the people it serves.
But here’s what we’ve lost. First, there will be only one opportunity early in the agenda, rather than one at the beginning and one at the end, as in the past. The advantage of having two public inquiries sections is obvious: if someone wants to make a point or ask questions before council deals with a particular item of business, a citizen can do so in the first one. If they want to ask questions or make a point about a decision after it’s made, they can do it in the second one.
Inquiries will be limited to a chosen few who get on the list, and they must abide by strict time limits. A time limit has been there for quite some time but, in theory, will now be strictly enforced, with a much shorter leash.
“Unfortunately, despite these options, it appears as though some community members have misinterpreted Public Inquiries as an engagement opportunity,” staff stated in a recent report, reviewing previous attempts to keep control of public inquiries.
What this misses is that the public inquiries section was added to agendas a couple of decades ago for the very purpose of engaging with council, without limitations on subject matter. This attempt to bring them back, under the tightened rules, takes away much of their usefulness.
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.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
Good morning Armchair Mayor. More than one of your readers might remember that brave “little old lady wearing a purple sweater and carrying a walking stick”. She was threatened with police action because she dared speak to the Mayor. A family member of hers had been part of the resistance movement in WW 2.
Do we need to start valuing our so-called “democracy” a bit more than we do now? The movement opposing the ideals of the Gang of Eight has built some momentum. Should the citizens look forward to expecting more peace offerings to those who vote as the next municipal election inches closer day by day?
LikeLike
Bringing back public inquiries after a two-month pause shows at least some recognition that residents deserve a voice.
The new rules heavily restrict access and spontaneity, which undermines the whole point of public inquiries. Limiting inquiries to one early slot in the agenda, rather than having two (one at the start, one at the end), kills the flexibility residents had to speak either before or after key decisions. That setup made sense: you could raise concerns before a vote or react to a decision after it’s made. Now, you’re stuck addressing everything upfront, potentially before all the context unfolds in the meeting. That’s a loss.
The requirement to pre-register and the strict two-minute cap (now apparently enforced with a tighter grip) further gatekeep participation. Sure, time limits have always existed, but shortening them and making them rigid risks cutting off meaningful dialogue. And capping it at five speakers? That’s a bottleneck. What happens when more than five people have something worth saying? First-come, first-served doesn’t guarantee the best voices are heard—just the fastest.
The council’s justification for these changes i.e. poor behavior by some residents feels like a convenient excuse to clamp down on everyone. If the issue is specific individuals disrupting meetings, deal with them directly through existing protocols, not by slashing access for all. The staff’s comment about “misinterpreting Public Inquiries as an engagement opportunity” is especially telling. Public inquiries were literally created for engagement, as Mel notes, and trying to redefine them as anything less is a bait-and-switch. It reeks of a council more interested in shielding itself from criticism than serving its constituents.
Will this Work? We won’t know until it’s implemented in May, but on paper, the format seems designed to minimize friction for the council rather than maximize input from the public. It might “protect” council members from uncomfortable moments, but it does so at the expense of openness. The old system wasn’t perfect, unruly behavior can derail meetings, but this feels like an overcorrection. A better balance might have been keeping the two inquiry slots, enforcing time limits case-by-case with some flexibility, and addressing bad actors directly rather than punishing the whole community.
The biggest loss is the spirit of the original system. Public inquiries were meant to be a raw, unfiltered channel for residents to engage with their leaders on any topic. By imposing tight rules, pre-registration, and limited slots, the council is signaling it values order over dialogue. That’s a step backward, even if it’s not a total shutdown.
In short, the new format might function, but it’s a pale shadow of what public inquiries were meant to be. The council shouldn’t be celebrating this, they should be asking how they can rebuild trust and access, not just manage it.
LikeLike