Censorship at City Council.
My deputation to City Council this afternoon was preceded by a statement of disappointment by me.
Citizens get no respect.
While standing at the podium preparing to address City Council, I first asked the Chair for permission to make a short statement before I started the deputation. He granted my request and I proceeded to express my disappointment that the Mayor’s office had refused to allow me the use of Powerpoint.
Two hours earlier, I sat in Council to hear and witness a Powerpoint presentation by the City’s Manager of Customer Services. He reported on his department’s performance and productivity progress over the past year and he used his Powerpoint slides effectively to direct the attention of the CAO, Mayor and eight Councillors to the most salient points of his report.
In the past, I have seen other government employees use Powerpoint in their presentations to Council to good effect.
My deputation today was limited by Council policy to 2.5 minutes because I had presented a 5-minute deputation to Council late last summer on the same property rights topic which concerns a Rural Zoning Project Report soon to become by-law. After a half year, I requested our first meaningful status update regarding the issues and recommendations we had made last summer.
Dr. Kerstin Kelly’s daughter, Alexandria, was kind enough to create a Powerpoint presentation that would make her mother and my shared deputation more impactful. With only 150 seconds to speak, this seemed the best way to use the time allotted.
A few hours before our deputation, I visited the Mayor’s office to ask how Dr. Kelly and I could present our six Powerpoint slides on the big screens in Council. Those slides contain evidence to support our topic of concern. They also included a page each for the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the Bill of Rights. We included those constitutional documents to remind our audience of every Canadian’s rights and freedoms, and every elected representative and public servant their duty to serve the public by Constitutional Law.
The Mayor’s office forbid our use of Powerpoint.
I tried to explain to the office administrator that our Powerpoint slides would help focus the attention of our audience on the most salient points of our message. The intended audience includes every citizen who attended Council in person and by Zoom, and everyone who will watch later on YouTube. I argued that our goal was to deliver the full impact of our message to Council and the public. I asked why government employees can use Powerpoint, but the citizens for whom they are alleged to serve cannot. The answer was: “Mayor’s orders”.
I can think of no other reason to restrict our ability to bring our concerns to Council in the most effective way possible than to intentionally “quasi-censor” and/or “shadowban” our voice in the “public square” by restricting the use of Powerpoint.
Sounds like they were afraid the PowerPoint might be impactful enough to make a reader understand your points , and
might give it the same legitimacy that the previous presentation had been given before council. Possibly ?
Oddly enough, I just finished watching a recording of a delegate question the mayor of Cambridge over a controversial design for open change rooms at a proposed recreation centre. The delegate was presentable, well spoken, and read her presentation clearly and politely. When it came to her main point, i.e. that many women and girls would not feel safe showering with naked men, the mayor interrupted the delegate for breaking "the rules of decorum", shut off the microphone, and called security.
There seems to be an epidemic of behaviour like this in our municipal governments. Our city councils ask for citizen input, but it seems that they are only willing to listen to input that they agree with.