Oxford County Council to Discuss Procedural By-Law for Budget Deliberations

Tuesday, 25 January 2022 at 05:54

City/County Councillor Deb Tait is planning to bring a motion forward which would allow motions from the floor during budget deliberations.

OXFORD COUNTY - Oxford County Council will once again be debating procedural by-laws at their meeting this week.

City/County Councillor Deb Tait is bringing forward a motion to allow for motions from the floor during budget deliberations. Tait says this is the way they have always done it.

"This year they liked the procedural by-law because they never liked it until this year. I don't know if they just didn't want to discuss the motions coming forward, I don't know what was going on because to me, it made absolutely no sense and why would you not want to listen to new information that is out there."

The procedural by-law for Oxford states that motions must be submitted in writing and posted online before the meeting. This issue caused a heated debate at the last council meeting, when council voted against a motion for reconsideration of the procedural by-law and did not listen to new motions on the budget.

Warden Larry Martin says he likes the procedural by-law because it allows for more transparency. Any motion brought forward needs to be submitted in writing first so the public and councillors can read and go over it, before it is debated by council.

Tait disagrees with that notion.

"To me it is not transparent to the public, because there could be new information that comes forward at the last minute or before the deadline to submit a motion in writing that could be beneficial to the public, so I don't know why every year until this year, it hasn't been a problem and then all of a sudden this year, there was a problem."

Councillor Marcus Ryan is also in favour of the by-law. He says the debate at the last meeting was embarrassing.

"It was an embarrassing meeting to get part of. We have a job to do, and we should follow the rules and do it as transparently as possible. I agree with Warden Martin that Council should be as transparent as possible. Submitting motions to change the budget should be done in advance so the public knows what’s going on, so staff are prepared to answer Council questions about it, and so that Councillors are best prepared to debate it. There’s no good reason Councillors can't prepare them in advance. Many do. Allowing motions at the last minute will only encourage political games and reduce transparency of how Council spends YOUR money. Debating and approving a budget should be done carefully, not rushed."

You can read all about the heated debate this issue caused at the last meeting online here.