EDITORIAL – City’s handling of permit ensured major publicity for OneBC

 An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

BUNGLING PUBLIC RELATIONS isn’t brand new for City Hall, and its handling of the OneBC town hall meeting is another great example of how not to do things.

As we know, the City released a rather inflammatory statement this week basically explaining that if it could, it wouldn’t allow a OneBC event in any of its municipal facilities but can’t legally discriminate in who it rents them to.

Not in those exact words, of course, but that was the gist of it. The statement, or letter, to the public went on at some length about how the City objects to what it called denialist and racist sentiments, and even mentioned hate speech.

It was signed ‘The City of Kamloops and Kamloops City Council.’ No name was attached.

Turns out that statement was never supposed to have been released because it hadn’t yet gone through whatever vetting processes are used for such things. So, it was erased from the City’s website.

In the meantime, of course, there’s been all the brouhaha over the City’s cancelling of OneBC’s facility rental permit because the party didn’t come up with several thousand dollars for security measures that the City added on top of the usual rental fee. Nothing to do with objections to the policies of OneBC and its leader Dallas Brodie, according to the City.

And City Hall has been forced to further explain the rationale for the security money, which, it said is needed “to handle crowd flow, safety compliance and access control.” This included a whole lot of requirements for how it would be handled.

As for the contents of its original statement, It’s understandable why the City should be so sensitive to the prospect of hosting a OneBC event. The City has worked for several years on the reconciliation file, and is careful not to bruise any feelings at Tk’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc.

When the highly controversial land claim lawsuit became a contentious public debate a few months ago, instead of stating any concerns for the rights of property owners, the City issued a joint statement with the Band claiming that everything “continues as normal.”

Undoubtedly, the City felt obligated to assure everyone it wasn’t on the same page as OneBC, especially since Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir has previously demanded Brodie’s resignation. This time, she issued a statement about the need for respectful dialogue, saying that “We affirm how harmful residential school denialism is for our communities, relationships and to the work of truth and reconciliation.”

In the background, of course, is her current silence on details around the investigation of 215 suspected “anomalies” at the residential school.

It might have been advisable to indulge in a little more silence on the OneBC town hall. By making such a big deal out of it, the City’s ham handed attempt to reassure everyone that it’s not a fan of Brodie and OneBC simply gave her and her party a whole lot of publicity.

That may account for the fact that, according to Brodie, 280 people had registered for the event as of yesterday. While a new venue hasn’t been announced, Brodie says those who have registered will be informed of the location closer to the Sunday evening start time.

Mel Rothenburger is a former regular contributor to CFJC-TV and CBC radio, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, writes for the Kamloops Chronicle and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and was 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.