Screen capture from Regular Council Meeting, October 24, 2022. Bottom left to right, Stacey Loe, Executive Director, Protective & Community Services, and CAO Mike Derricott and behind him and Loe, left to right are Kristin Huybrecht, Manager, Intergovernmental Relations & Corporate Communications and Lisa Almond, Director Organizational Strategy & Culture.
ABSTRACT
At the October 24, 2022 Cochrane Town Council Meeting, Councillor Marni Fedeyko introduced a motion to restore the comments to the town’s official Facebook page after the Administration had decided to disable such comments as of September 27, 2022. After 33 minutes of debate where the Administration weighed in with its arguments for about 40% of the time, the motion was defeated as a result of a tied 3-3 vote. This was a skirmish over who runs the town and the Administration prevailed because three Council members, Mayor Genung and Councillors Flowers and Reed, who also had a low regard for freedom of speech and public engagement, chose to yield to Administration’s authority on the matter.
The arguments made by Administration to support their decision ranged from characterizing the public comments made at the Facebook page as “negative toxicity directed towards the town” to “regular misinformation being shared”, “challenging dialogue”, having the financial financial consequence of needing to pay overtime to the communications staff to monitor the page, and possibly contributing to lawsuits by persons within the comments accusing one another of bullying, etc. The last two arguments are more nonsensical than the rest. In an email from Administration to Town Council announcing the disabling of comments and giving reasons for doing so, one astonishing reason was that the comments on the town’s Facebook page contribute to “a mental health impact for both staff and Council”!
All the discussion that evening skipped over what was the most likely reason, hinted at with the CAO’s reference to “negative toxicity directed towards the town”, namely, the overwhelming negative feedback to a Facebook post announcing that the town would be taking the day off with pay to honour Trudeau’s National Day of Mourning for Queen Elizabeth II. Our thin-skinned Administration couldn’t tolerate that.
This little skirmish showed once again, just like in the fall of 2021 when the CAO ordered the Town Council to submit their COVID-19 vaccination status to the Administration, who really runs Cochrane’s municipal government.
FULL REPORT
As reported by Cochrane Now, “Tied vote prevents return of comments on town Facebook page”, Councillor Marni Fedeyko brought a notice of motion forward at the October 24, 2022 Regular Council Meeting to once again allow the public to comment on the town’s Facebook page, in response to the disabling of comments on the Town’s “official” Facebook page as of September 27, 2022. Cochrane Now had reported “On Sept. 27, the town (emphasis added) announced it was disabling comments from its Facebook page”. As I have mentioned before, it can be confusing when reference is made to the “town” or the “Town of Cochrane”. While it may be presumed that it is a reference to decisions made by our elected Town Council, often it applies to decisions made exclusively by the Town’s Administration, which was the case with respect to the decision to disable comments at the town’s “official” Facebook page. In that light, this incident can be viewed as a skirmish to determine who ultimately runs the Town of Cochrane.
According to Section 7.2 (a) (i) of the Town of Cochrane procedural by-law 19-2019 the common practice for a councillor to bring a notice of motion (the means by which a Member of Council brings business before Council) forward is that such notice is to be “given at a previous regular Council meeting and a legible copy of the content of the notice is made available to the Manager, Legislative Services”. As well, “To be placed on the meeting agenda, the Notice of Motion and any supporting documents must be submitted in the form of a Council Report to the Manager, Legislative Services by 4:00 pm on the seventh complete day preceding the meeting”. However, without such advance notice, according to Section 7.2 (a) (ii) of the procedural bylaw, a councillor may introduce a motion at the time of a Council Meeting provided that “Council on a two-thirds (2/3) vote waives the requirement for Notice”. That was the means by which Councillor Fedeyko brought her motion, “that town Administration re-enable the ability for residents to provide comments to all social media pages that were removed”, forward. She received the two-thirds (2/3) vote necessary to proceed as only Mayor Genung and Councillor Flowers voted against her doing so.
[As an aside, Section 4.2 (c) of the section dealing with “Conduct of Meeting” in the procedural bylaw 19-2019 states, “When the Presiding Officer wishes to participate in the debate on a question or motion properly before the Meeting, the Presiding Officer shall vacate the Chair and request the Deputy Mayor to assume the Chair”. I have noticed that mayor Genung as the Presiding Officer actively participated in the debate at the October 24, 2022 Council Meeting and has done so on other occasions, thereby, not complying with Section 4.2 (c) of the procedural bylaw.]
When it came to the main motion, it was defeated as a result of a tied 3-3 vote (since according to procedural bylaw 19-2019, “If there are an equal number of votes for and against a resolution, the resolution is defeated”), with Mayor Genung, and Councillors Flowers and Reed voting against the motion and Councillors Fedeyko, Nagel and Wilson voting in favour. Unfortunately, Councillor Tara McFadden wasn’t in attendance for the debate and vote as she earlier was called away by a personal matter. Given her disgruntlement with Administration expressed during the budget discussions, it’s likely that she would have voted in favour of Fedeyko’s motion to restore the comments. Looking around her, it’s unfortunate that Councillor Fedeyko proceeded with her notice of motion on that day as it now looked like the odds of getting Council approval, given who was left in the room, were likely stacked against her, particularly after hearing Councillor Reed’s digression after the 2023-2025 budget presentation sharing his generally negative attitude towards public engagement, found between 1:40:40 and 1:43:27 minutes of the meeting’s video. His comment, “I guess public engagement is important, but…”, reminds one of a speech defending the absolute right of free speech made in 2015 by author Salman Rushdie, who lived for years under a death threat after his 1988 book “The Satanic Verses” drew the wrath of Iranian religious leaders. In that speech Rushdie pointed out, “The moment I hear someone say, yes, I believe in free speech but…I stop listening!”. As a lawyer friend once told me, if you want to know what a person really believes, ignore what comes before the ‘but’.
The section of the video for the October 24, 2022 Council Meeting that dealt with Fedeyko’s motion occurs between 1:44:00 and 2:23:57 minutes. The discussion that took place that evening involving Council and members of the Administration was revealing about attitudes to free speech and public engagement, and who runs the Town of Cochrane.
When it came to Notices of Motion, item #8 in the meeting agenda, Mayor Genung looked over to Councillor Fedeyko and called out her name, which reveals that her motion was foreknown to the mayor and others, presumably including the CAO Mike Derricott and the town’s Administration
The CAO Mike Derricott advised that Notices of Motion are “intended to generate activity from Administration to respond” with a report or to bring information forward generally speaking. I am not able to find such required action by Administration in the procedural bylaw 19-2019. One notices that it has been the convention for Administration to include a Town of Cochrane Report to accompany each agenda item for a Council meeting along with “recommended action” that Town Council is expected to follow.
Fedeyko noted that her concern was not so much about the shutdown of the comments, but more about who is making the decision, which relates to who is running the town, and why this skirmish over who controls the town’s Facebook page, provided an answer of sorts to that question. She correctly pointed out that the decision to disable comments on the Town’s “official” Facebook page was not a Council-led decision, but, rather, an administrative decision.
Councillor Nagel expressed a desire to have it dealt with that night and Councillor Flowers followed up agreeing with that suggestion. Reed indicated that he, as well, would have preferred that it had been a Council decision and that he supported Fedeyko’s motion.
Mayor Genung then weighed in with his “two cents” arguing that “you guys put way too much weight on social media” and opposed bringing the matter forward the way Councillor Fedeyko had done, despite its allowance as an option according to Section 7.2 (a) (ii) of the town’s procedural by-law 19-2019. He argued that using that option was a “blindside” to the administration, not allowing “our team” the opportunity to provide feedback on what it is that the Council wanted to talk about. Remember that the feedback sought by the mayor also typically includes the Administration telling Council what it should do – what actions it should take
Despite expressing the view to wanting to get it over with that evening, Councillor Flowers, nonetheless, then voted with Mayor Genung to oppose the application of Section 7.2 (a) (ii) of the town’s procedural by-law 19-2019. However, Councillor Flowers’ vote was not that surprising as she will often look over her shoulder to see how the mayor will vote on a matter.
In the debate of the motion that followed at 1:50:55 minutes, Fedeyko argued, “Like it or not we are accountable to the public of Cochrane, and I don’t want to limit another line of communication”.
Genung laughed then said as if in disbelief, “I just want to be clear. So, you are wanting to make that motion tonight so that it happens tomorrow”. That should have been evident to him.
Councillor Reed expressed the view that it should have been a Council decision or at least have a discussion about it. He said he was troubled by his feeling of this being “a form of censorship” and was interested in hearing Administration’s rationale for the decision, particularly if allowing comments required a commitment to more staff time as that “would influence his decision” on this matter. On October 7, 2022 I had sent an email to the Mayor and Council wherein I expressed concern about a trend of restricted public engagement with the Town of Cochrane. If he had bothered to read that email, he would have one, and the most likely, answer to his question, namely, the strong criticism (Screen shots from Facebook Posts) Administration received with respect to two Facebook posts, one on September 14th and the other on September 19th, related to an announcement that the Town’s administrative staff would take the day off with pay on September 19th in observance of Trudeau’s declared National Day of Mourning in Canada to honour Queen Elizabeth II. Several commentators were critical of Town Council because they misunderstood that this was a decision made by the CAO and Town Administration, not by our elected representatives, Town Council. On September 14, 2022 the town’s communications department had issued a press release, proudly declaring, “Cochrane To Honour National Day Of Mourning In Canada”. The Administration, presumably without consulting the Town Council, also decided to cancel a Council Committee of the Whole meeting scheduled for September 19th. Cochrane Now reported, “Town of Cochrane respecting National Day of Mourning”. Again, there is ambiguity as to what is meant by “Cochrane” or “Town of Cochrane”. Does that refer to the Administration? The elected Town Council? Both? The residents of Cochrane? I suspect people most often presume that “Cochrane” is a reference to a decision made by our elected Town Council, but often this refers to decisions made by the town’s Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) and senior management, as was the case here. Therefore, the byline of the press release should have more accurately read, ‘Town of Cochrane Administration to Honour National Day of Mourning, as Declared by Justin Trudeau, with Day Off With Pay’.
Strangely, while Councillor Reed was talking about wanting some explanation from Administration for shutting down the comments, Mayor Genung seemed to be giving some kind of signal to Administration, putting his finger to his mouth, and pointing to Administration (see segment from1:56:03 to 1:56:32 minutes). Mayor Genung then jumped in to say, “Councillor Reed I don’t think it’s fair to put Administration in that position tonight. That is exactly why we have a process”. After Reed said that he thought it was part of the discussion, Mayor Genung came back and asked, “Administration, if you are happy to answer?”, the CAO Mike Derricott was ready to jump in (1:56:49) with their full-court press, saying that it sounds like they had no choice but to enter into the conversation. He started out saying he would begin with “a few thoughts” and then possibly call upon Lisa Almond, responsible for communications, to come up and make some supplementary comments. According to the CAO, their big-picture “assessment of the public discourse that is taking place was that the comment section was a net negative to the work the town was doing; not a net positive”. If one examines the town’s Facebook page and the multiple posts over the years and the occasional comments that are made with respect to them, it’s hard to find support for such a broad-brush assessment. However, the comments (Screen shots from Facebook Posts) with respect to the September 14th and September 19th Facebook posts, announcing that Administration would be taking the day off to respect Trudeau’s National Day of Mourning for the Queen, certainly were a net negative.
He referred to “negative toxicity” directed not just towards the town (administration) but also residents in their interactions with one another which was not desirable for Administration to see. Presumably, criticism of the town administration for taking the day off with pay to “respect” Trudeau’s announced Day of Mourning is an example of what the CAO and Administration would characterize as “negative toxicity”. Clearly, such negativity is not to be tolerated in ‘Mr. Derricott’s neighborhood’.
He also expressed concern that a significant and common piece being seen there through public comments on Facebook was “regular misinformation being shared”, “not supporting the town message”. Interesting that the CAO is sounding here a lot like Justin Trudeau who is in the process of bringing forward two bills in Parliament to regulate the information that is allowed on the internet to supposedly ‘combat’ misinformation and hate speech. Like NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, the CAO seems to think that it is his responsibility to regulate what he considers ‘misinformation’ online. One definition of “misinformation” for those expressing alarm about it, is that it applies to information or opinions that one does not share or like.
He then added that he and Administration had a “lot to say” on the matter although he earlier talked about wanting to share “a few thoughts”, and followed up with various arguments (“myriad of reasons”) to support the Administration’s decision to disable comments on the town’s “official” Facebook page, in addition to raising the presence of “negative toxicity” and “regular misinformation”:
– Research indicates that social media is a pretty bad place for public engagement and taking advice, not indicative of general populace’s feelings on issues. Administration’s intent is to just to share information, “without supporting or encouraging the challenging dialogue that we’ve seen”.
– Took great offence to the idea that this is somehow censorship. Any individual can say anything they want on their own social media platform, can reach out to Council directly. “We are open. We are accessible. We are transparent”. With respect to the former, making comments at one’s own social media platform or elsewhere is hardly “engagement” with the town. With respect to his claim of being open, accessible and transparent, on September 19, 2022 I sent an email to Mr. Derricott enquiring as to why the commitment to give regular staffing updates to Town Council in 2022 appears not to have been followed. Not receiving a reply from Mr. Derricott after a hiatus of almost three weeks, I then sent an email to Mayor Genung and Town Council, copied to Derricott, on October 7, 2022 hoping to get their assistance in securing an answer, also pointing out the concerning trend of restricted public engagement. No one on Town Council responded. Snubbing me by not answering, so much for Derricott’s claim of being open, accessible, and transparent!
– Claimed that action was spawned out of strategic planning session in the spring, thereby rejected that Administration’s action was taken without any feedback from Council.
– Administration considered how to ensure that “our” social media presence creates the best possible outcome “reflecting the kind of community we are and that we are trying to be.” Presumably making the ‘sacrifice’ of taking the day off with pay for Trudeau’s National Day of Mourning is supposed to be reflective of the kind of community “we” are trying to be. Not going to participate in negativity around our community. (That is, the public is not going to be able to use the Town of Cochrane platform for making their views known, especially if they are negative).
– People have other avenues. They can post it themselves, go on Rants and Raves pages, interact with councillors. Of course, such a brushoff, saying residents are free to make their comments elsewhere, hardly constitutes an opportunity for ‘engagement’ with the town, in this case at the town’s “official” Facebook page, but, rather, ‘disengagement’. According to Wikipedia, “Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression. So shutting down comments on a social media platform like Facebook is antithetical to its intent.
Councillor Reed rightly observed that when the government turns something off that was previously public, one could interpret that as censorship. As far as public engagement, he expressed that he is not the one to ask as he “doesn’t 
even look at this stuff”. Nonetheless, it’s interesting that he managed to find his way to the town’s September 27, 2022 Facebook post announcing the disabling of comments to which he offered his thumbs-up ‘like’ of that decision by Administration. He thought some discussion with Council about removing comments would have been appropriate.
Lisa Almond next stepped up, claiming that Council needs all the information as to why she made the decision in order for Council “to make the right decision”, and offered up these additional arguments:
– Had an “overwhelming positive response” from turning off the comments. Unfortunately, nobody asked her for clarification about where such response came from. According to information gathered through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request (attached) there was enthusiastic congratulatory support from eight administrative staff members who provided feedback. One town employee, Stephen Johnson, who applauded the disabling of Facebook comments added the colourful comment, “Of course you may know the old saying ‘the only thing perfect in this world…is an asshole’ (excuse my language)”. Was he thinking of those who had made negative comments on the Facebook page related to the staff taking the day off with pay to “respect’ the Day of Mourning for Queen Elizabeth II? Lisa Almond seemed pleased by that comment, saying, “Oh I love Stephen!”. Gee, what happened to Administration’s admonition to “choose kindness”. There was one person external to the Administration expressing support. In any event, censorship shouldn’t be determined on the basis of a poll. One individual staff member saying she has “hope staff (and residents) are comforted by the message and feel supported”, can only be understood in the context of the harsh criticism of the staff taking a day off with pay for Trudeau’s Day of Mourning.
No mention of the overwhelming negative comments (Screen shots from Facebook Posts) received with respect to the two Facebook posts, one on September 14th and the other on September 19th, related to the announcement that the Town’s staff would take the day off with pay on September 19th in observance of Trudeau’s declared National Day of Mourning in Canada to honour Queen Elizabeth II.
– Leaving the comments back on, she claimed one would have to pay overtime for staff and weekend coverage. All I can say to that argument is baloney.
– Possible lawsuits by persons within comments accusing one another of bullying, etc. Hardly see how that would be a responsibility of the town or put the town at risk of getting sued for not taking down comments quick enough, and most often as the record clearly shows, that apart from situations like the staff deciding to take the day off with pay for the Queen’s funeral, the reality is that there are few, if any, comments with respect to the posts made at the town’s Facebook page (as demonstrated by the July 2022 Facebook analysis below).
Fedeyko emphasized the need to separate the town Administration from the Council, which people often don’t see. I agree as that is something which I have drawn attention to, namely, the confusion as to what is meant by “Town of Cochrane” in peoples’ minds. An example of such confusion in the public’s mind is evident in that some of the comments (Screen shots from Facebook Posts) at the town’s September 14th Facebook post, expressing displeasure over the town taking the day off with pay for the Day of Mourning, directed their displeasure at the Mayor and Town Council.
Although there was no formal direction from Council not to disable comments, Derricott felt because of some previous dialogue around how to promote a better healthy dialogue in our community at a strategic planning meeting in the spring, Administration took from that dialogue (not specific direction) support to move in the direction they took. Apparently, that dialogue included concerns about negativity and misinformation. He expressed the view that there is always a “blurred line” as to what is Council’s prerogative and what is Administration’s. I would contend that such blurred line often works in the favor of the Administration.
Councilor Wilson described himself as “a free speech absolutist, the most precious Charter right”.
Councilor Reed mentioned that he recalled receiving the email sent out by Administration on September 22, 2022 (Email #2 from the FOI request, attached) and realized that he had responded, “Oh, I support this movement. I appreciate the foresight”. Saying he would need more information about the rationale, the whole story, and therefore wouldn’t be able to make an informed decision that evening about the matter. Despite his declaring as not having sufficient information to make an informed decision on the matter, he, nonetheless, found his way over to the town’s September 27, 2022 Facebook post and gave a thumbs-up ‘like’ to the announcement that the decision was made to disable the comments.
The CAO’s “few thoughts” took up about 7 minutes, followed by about 2 minutes of comments from Lisa Almond, for a 9-minute volley from the Administration. If one includes the answers given to subsequent questions or comments by Fedeyko and Nagel, which took up about 4 minutes, then the Administration occupied about 13 minutes or about 40% of the 33-minute debate related to Fedeyko’s motion! Interesting that the Council members in support of returning comments to the Facebook page, Fedeyko, Nagel and Wilson, now found themselves engaged in a debate not only with their fellow councilors like mayor Genung, who strongly supported the Administration’s decision, but also with the Administration.
Fedeyko in closing was concerned that as this goes out to the public, the public assumes that this was a Council-led decision and expressed that her preference was to open up the comments and “let people speak”.
To conclude the debate, the mayor jumped in and defiantly declared, “I’m going to push back”. He declared in his view that it was not about profanity or censorship. Somebody could easily copy and past something from the Town site onto their own or the Rants and Raves page and comment away, the same kind of argument made earlier by Derricott. While he said this “no means is to steer someone’s comment to somewhere else”, but that is exactly what he was proposing. He failed to understand that telling people to go elsewhere is not public engagement with the town, but, rather, disengagement. He indicated that his primary concern is “misinformation”, again parroting the CAO, and “the entire issue why comments have been turned off”. Encourages people who “want to throw stones, based on misinformation”. Sounds a lot here like Trudeau and his pal Jagmeet Singh who want to control and limit the kind of information and opinion they don’t like or agree with.
Like the CAO, he claimed that the amount of misinformation through the Town of Cochrane feed is degrading the ability to share the message in the first place. Again, one only has to look at the history of the many, many posts at the town’s Facebook page over the years, many of which don’t 
even get a comment, to find that his claim is a gross exaggeration. For example, in July 2022 the Administration made 35 posts at the town’s Facebook page. For 21 (60%) of those posts there were zero comments. For the remaining 14 posts, the number of comments ranged from 1 to 22 comments with an average of 7-8 comments per post. Six (43%) of those 14 posts only had 1-3 comments, such that for 27 (77%) of the posts there were three or less comments. Surely the comments with respect to the post on July 7, 2022 that received 22 comments, the highest number of comments for a post in July, would provide clear evidence for the claimed “negative toxicity directed towards the town” and “regular misinformation being shared”. Turned out that post actually was an invitation from Administration for comments, for engagement, a sharing of one’s favourite view of Cochrane with a chance to win a prize for the best submissions. One requirement to enter the contest was to follow, that is, engage, Town of Cochrane on Facebook. A lot of neat photos and ‘engagement’ with town staff offering appreciative comments. No whiff of negativity or misinformation. So much for the exaggerated claims being put forward to justify the disabling of comments on the town’s Facebook page.
The mayor continued that social media was one source of information, not the source, and that it promotes and enables poor behavior. The only thing he heard that he would agree with was that more information was needed to be able to make an informed decision on Fedeyko’s motion. Could there be any more information needed than the 13 minutes heard from the Administration and in the email sent to the Town Council on September 22, 2022 (see Information Gleaned from FOI Request below)? I don’t think the lack of information is the determining factor, but rather his general alignment with and general willingness to defer to the Administration. In my view, his time spent on the upper floors of the RancheHouse in the administrative wing has made him more aligned with the Administration, the upstairs folks, than the downstairs folks, the elected council in the Council Chambers. No wonder that his arguments in support of disabling comments were very similar to those offered by Derricott.
Genung advised that council should fall back on our process and allow our Administration to come up with an argument. When they consumed about 40% of the time making their argument? Again, dismissing the perfectly acceptable allowance in the procedural bylaw to follow the path that Fedeyko chose as if it was somehow inappropriate. I would suggest that Genung’s criticism of Fedeyko following a pathway clearly allowable by the procedural bylaw 19-2019, borders on ‘misinformation’.
After the motion failed from the tied vote, Genung looked over at Councilor Fedeyko, in my view, a domineering manner, declaring “failed”, seemingly to make sure she understood and as if to rub it in (2:23:45 to 2:23:51 minutes).
While an array of arguments was provided by Administration and, as well, by Mayor Genung as the reasons for disabling comments at the town’s Facebook page, I would contend that the primary reason was the overwhelming negative comments received with respect to a Facebook post announcing that the town was going to take the day off with pay for the September 19, 2022 Day of Mourning for Queen Elizabeth II. Consist with that was CAO Derricott complaining about “negative toxicity directed towards the town” in Facebook comments.
Consistent with the negative feedback received with respect to the Day of Mourning announcement as primarily responsible for the removal of comments was a town employee’s response to the announcement as hoping that “staff (and residents) are comforted by the message” (See email #3, FOI request information attached). Comforted as if something in those Facebook comments had caused the staff discomfort. When Kristin Huybrecht, Manager, Intergovernmental Relations & Corporate Communications, sent an email to Lisa Almond, Director Organizational Strategy & Culture, along with some draft documents for approval related to disabling the Facebook comments, she added, “We definitely received a lot of comments about our recent closure and want to ensure that this decision doesn’t feel like a response to that. As such, we could consider launching this October 3 to provide a little more space.” (See Information Gleaned from FOI Request, attached). It not only ‘feels’ like it was a response to the negative comments about the recent closure for the Day of Mourning, but most likely was the main reason for the disabling of comments, to provide some “comfort” for the staff’s hurt feelings. No wonder that of the eight staff members who replied to the announcement (See Information Gleaned from FOI Request, attached) all enthusiastically supported it. Is this the “overwhelming positive response” for disabling the comments that Almond used as an argument with Council to justify her decision to remove the comments?
In the September 22, 2022 email from Kristin Huybrecht, Manager, Intergovernmental Relations & Corporate Communications to Town Council, announcing the disabling of comments, she listed “a mental health impact for both staff and Council” as one of the possible impacts of the comments on Facebook. Good grief they are actually claiming that the comments on the Facebook posts are actually impacting the mental health of staff and Council members! With respect to Huybrecht saying, “We will further support the foundation of intentional relationships through a renewed focus on public engagement and community events”, noteworthy that when Council sent administration a directive to come back with ideas for public engagement with respect to the $250,000 enhancement of the 4th Avenue retaining wall, Administration only came back to Council on November 28, 2022 with reasons, or rather excuses, why it was not possible. Hardly a “renewed focus on public engagement”.
The September 27, 2022 Facebook post announcing the disabling of comments declared, “While the discussions we see on our public Facebook page reflect the community passion, they do not always contribute to a civil dialogue or the sharing of accurate information”. “So”, therefore for those reasons, their bogus argument, “we (the Administration) have disabled comments on the Cochrane Facebook page”. The reference to there not being what they consider “a civil dialogue”, most likely refers to the largely negative comments they received with respect their announcement to take the day off for the September 19, 2022 Day of Mourning.
This little skirmish, where a few Town councillors tried to wrestle some control away from the Town Administration, revealed once again that this town’s municipal government is largely run by our unelected Administration officials. Nothing new. Most notably, in the fall of 2021, the CAO Mike Derricott signed off on a Vaccine Disclosure Administrative Directive requiring town staff to disclose their vaccination status, where failing to do so, could subject them to a loss of employment. Noteworthy, he requested the same from our members of Town Council, clearly a case of ‘the tail wagging the dog’. As there was no evidence of objections raised by our elected Town Council to this demand not only for themselves but also the Town’s staff, disappointingly, one can conclude that they willingly submitted to and supported the coercive edict issued by the Town’s CAO and compliantly went along with the subsequent policy requiring Town staff and new hires to show proof of vaccination.
Noteworthy that the organizational chart for the town in 2020 showed an arrow going down from Mayor & Council, whereas, that arrow is no longer there in the Town’s organizational chart for 2022.
Information Gleaned from FOI Request
In the hopes of getting a better understanding of what was behind the decision-making to shut down comments on the Town’s official Facebook page, I made the following Freedom of Information (FOI) request on November 14, 2022:
“Copies of all correspondence by the Town Administration, both internal within Administration and external, such as with the Mayor and Town Councillors and residents of Cochrane, related to the management of the Town’s official Facebook page and the decision to no longer allow comments to be made on the Facebook page” for the period September 1, 2022, to October 31, 2022.
The FOI request was rather disappointing in terms of revealing of what went on behind the scenes. Such dearth of information was explainable given the message received from the Town’s record office accompanying the information received. The record office pointed out that while the findings provided 49 pages of correspondence (often a repetition of information) by the Town Administration both internal and external, on the other hand, “Confirmation was received that most of the discussions surrounding this decision were verbal”.
On September 20, 2022, Kristin Huybrecht, Manager, Intergovernmental Relations & Corporate Communications, sent an email, “Social media comments”, to Lisa Almond, Director Organizational Strategy & Culture, which included a series of three drafts for approval by Almond, one a draft email to be sent to the Town Council, another a draft email to STAR (consisting of the CAO, all Directors, and Managers, including the Fire Chief and Deputy Fire Chief, the Capital Projects Engineer and Corporate Strategy Officer), and the third, draft text for a Facebook post to announce the disabling of comments on the town’s Facebook page, with the following preamble for the three drafts:
“We are ready to move forward with our social media comments being turned off. I’ve drafted messaging for each of the key groups and asked Natalie to prepare a graphic to support this message being rolled out. I wanted to provide you the opportunity to review this prior to us sending it out, and confirm that you are good with the date. We definitely received a lot of comments about our recent closure and want to ensure that this decision doesn’t feel like a response to that. As such, we could consider launching this October 3 to provide a little more space.”
The sparse content provided from the FOI request consisted primarily of three emails sent out by Kristin Huybrecht, Manager, Intergovernmental Relations & Corporate Communications, along with responses by town staff to two of the emails:
Email #1: Kristin Huybrecht, Manager, Intergovernmental Relations & Corporate Communications, to STAR team (consisting of the CAO, all Directors, and Managers, including the Fire Chief and Deputy Fire Chief, the Capital Projects Engineer and Corporate Strategy Officer).
On September 22, 2022, Huybrecht sent an email, “Social media comments”, to the Strategic Thinking and Resolutions (STAR) team, writing:
“At the July STAR meeting, Lisa shared that we are looking to disable comments on the Town’s Facebook page. I wanted to reach out and confirm that we are now ready to do so.
Effective Monday, September 26 we will be disabling comments on the Town’s Facebook page. Comments will still be permitted on associated Town Facebook pages, including FCSS, COLT, Eco Centre as we look to understand best practices with regards to managing and maintaining multiple municipal Facebook pages.
As we move forward with this, we will be inviting community members to share their questions directly through Facebook messenger and will be relying on the support of yourself and your teams to ensure we are able to provide prompt responses to these direct questions and comments.
What do we need from you? Keep us informed – the more we know about what’s going on in every department, the better equipped we are to respond to questions and comments. Let us know who to talk to – Communications will continue to be the face of public conversation, but you and your teams are the subject matter experts. When we are sharing information about a initiative, project or community update, let us know who we should be talking to on your team.
Thanks for your support.”
Three town staff, in turn, responded offering enthusiastic support for disabling comments on the Town’s Facebook page:
Shane Hubl, Director, Operations Services: “Excellent, thank you so much, Kristin. I support this 100%!”
Shawn Polley, Fire Chief/Deputy Director of Emergency Management: “This is great news, and we are happy to support and take the lead with support wherever necessary.”
Wally Hume, Manager Roads: “This is great news they are removing the comments makes me really happy… I feel Facebook is a very toxic environment and there is to (sic) many key board warriors.”
Email #2: From Kristin Huybrecht, Manager, Intergovernmental Relations & Corporate Communications, to Cochrane Town Council.
On September 22, 2022, Huybrecht sent an email, “Social media comments” to the Town council members, advising them:
While we continue to pursue a variety of communication channels to support community messaging, updates and engagement, we recognize that social media remains a key communications tool. And while we value the enthusiasm of our community in comment on our social media posts, we also recognize the impact these comments can have in terms of inaccurate information being shared, disputes arising between commenters, key messages being lost amongst a long list of comments, and a mental health impact for both staff and Council.
This is a trend we are seeing in all levels of government, and especially municipal government. And we have decided it’s time to try something different.
Effective Monday, September 26 we will be disabling comments on the Town’s Facebook page. Comments will still be permitted on associated Town Facebook pages, including FCSS, COLT, Eco Centre as we look to understand best practices with regards to managing and maintaining multiple municipal Facebook pages. As we move forward with this, we will be inviting community members to share their questions directly through Facebook messenger and will be relying on all Town departments for support in ensuring we are able to provide prompt responses to these direct questions and comments.
We are not the first municipality to do so. The City of Kamloops disabled their Facebook comments in mid-June, as well as the municipalities of Fernie and Tofino. And we’ve recently seen the Calgary City Police disable comments on some of their posts.
We anticipate that the announcement of this change will result in media requests and community feedback. However, we believe that this change aligns with the Strategic Plan in creating a vibrant and innovative community.
Talented and dedicated staff are working each day on your behalf, ensuring the level of service we provide is worthy of the exceptional Cochrane community we are honoured to support. A community that we care about. A community we are invested in. A community deserving of the very best municipal services, provided with consistency, reliability, and ever mindful of returning value to our taxpayers.
We care about Cochrane residents and the value of the important information that we share through our communication channels. When messages are buried in off-topic comments the message can be distorted. In emergency situations, this is a top priority as an influx of comments may hide important details crucial for community safety.
We will further support the foundation of intentional relationships through a renewed focus on public engagement and community events.
Thanks for your support.
CAO Mike Derricott responded to this email: “Great message!”
Email #3: From Kristin Huybrecht, Manager, Intergovernmental Relations & Corporate Communications, to the Town staff.
An email, “Disabling Facebook Comments” was sent out by Huybrecht on September 29, 2022 to Town staff, informing them, “Earlier this week we turned off comments on the Cochrane Facebook page. For those of you who may not follow our social media channels, we wanted to share the message that we posted to ensure you were aware of the decision, as well as ‘the why’ behind it” with a copy of the collage and wording that accompanied the Facebook post on September 27, 2022.
The “why behind it” as it appeared at the September 27, 2022 Facebook post appeared as follows:
Cochranites are passionate about their community. And we believe that passion reflects the many reasons we’ve all chosen to call Cochrane home. From the beautiful landscape, the charming neighbourhoods, the abundant community events, our historic downtown – there’s a lot to love about Cochrane.
And for those of us who are fortunate to work for Cochrane, we take great pride in working for a municipality that is vested in culture that people want to be a part of. We are proud of the work that we do in contributing to making Cochrane the best community in Canada.
While the discussions we see on our public Facebook page reflect the community passion, they do not always contribute to a civil dialogue or the sharing of accurate information.
So we’ve decided to try something different – we have disabled comments on the Cochrane Facebook page.
We will continue to share information on this platform, and we still want to hear from you. Send your comments and questions through Facebook messenger, send an email, or give us a call. We look forward to more public engagement through upcoming engagement sessions and our Let’s Talk Cochrane page.
Various town staff offered their enthusiastic congratulatory support for such an initiative:
Anne-Denise Lipman, Recruitment & Engagement Programmer: “Great message and explanation. I hope staff (and residents) are comforted by the message and feel supported”.
Pinky De La Cruz, Cochrane’s Engineering and Assets Services Director: “what a well-crafted message. Very well done!”
Jaylene Knight, manager, Legislative Services: “Great message Kristin!!”
Stephen Johnson, a town employee, applauded the disabling of Facebook comments, “I just wanted to say, “keep up the great work that you do!! Of course you may know the old saying ‘the only thing perfect in this world…is an asshole’ (excuse my language). Cheers to you & the team & keep up the GREAT work!!” A portion of the email was redacted.
Lisa Almond, Director Organizational Strategy & Culture, responded to that glowing endorsement, “Oh I love Stephen! Great work team.”
There was only one the record of feedback received from outside the Town office. On October 13, 2022 someone with the first name, Kirk, wrote to Kristin Huybrecht, “Saw your post about turning comments off on Facebook- I love it!” Part of the content of the email was redacted (blacked out).
On September 1, 2022 Kristin Huybrecht reached out to the Communications Manager with the City of Kamloops, wanting “to hear some insights from a municipality who has moved through this process”.
With the Communications Manager at Kamloops being out of the office and being directed to contact the Acting Communications Manager with the City of Kamloops Kristin Huybrecht reached out to her on September 27, 2022 for some technical assistance, writing, “We are looking to follow Kamloops’ path and remove comments from our FB page. I’m curious on the process you’ve engaged to facilitate this? The only option we’ve discovered is to turn off comments on each post.”
On September 27, 2022, the Acting Communications Manager with the City of Kamloops advised Kristin Huybrecht:
“Yes unfortunately due to the nature of Facebook being a social interaction platform, they do not make it easy to turn off comments. We literally go in and do it on every post. If we pre-schedule posts, we set an alert for ourselves to go turn off comments, otherwise we do it at the same time. It’s a bit time consuming, but MUCH less so than dealing with the incessant negative discourse that used to drain our time and impact our mental wellness.” Note the reference to Facebook being “a social interaction platform” and they have decided to turn off that social interaction.