ABSTRACT

I had expected the town Administration’s whitewashing of its failure to ensure compliance with the Towns’ procedural bylaw to have been completed with the second-reading debate and likely third-reading approval of the draft revised Procedural Bylaw 17/2024 at the Regular Council Meeting held on April 22, 2024. However, Council decided to defer the matter to a later date because Councillor McFadden was unable to attend the meeting that evening. According to Ms. Stacey Loe, Executive Director, Legislative Services, “the only impact” of such a deferral would be that Council would “continue to operate under the existing procedural bylaw that is in effect” (namely, Procedural Bylaw 19/2019) until the new revised bylaw was adopted by Council.

However, while the existing procedural bylaw was still “in effect”, the mayor with his bringing forward a notice of motion, his first notice of motion as mayor, proceeded as if the draft revised Procedural Bylaw 17/2024 had already been adopted by Council that evening. Mayor Genung began by declaring, “I do need to relinquish the chair at this point”. However, there is no such procedure contained in the existing procedural bylaw, which Ms. Stacey Loe declared was still “in effect”, but such a procedure was contained in the draft revised Procedural Bylaw 17/2024. In essence, the mayor was jumping the gun, implementing a process which had not yet been adopted by Council, but, nonetheless, endorsed by Administration that evening. Hence the inclusion of the words “sort of” in the title of this blog.

What happened with the mayor’s notice of motion just adds to the history of the town’s arbitrary, erratic treatment of notices of motion. The Administration instead of ensuring that it was properly applied as clearly written in the existing Procedural Bylaw 19/2019, to avoid acknowledging their failure to do so, decided to rework that section related to notices of motion such that it was so corrupted that it no longer resembles what constitutes a notice of motion. That section, 7.2, of the draft revised Procedural Bylaw 17/2024, entitled “Notices of Motion”, should more appropriately be entitled something like “Councillor Motions”, because it certainly does not describe a notice of motion.

I still have not received a reply from Ms. Jaylene Knight, Director, Legislative & Administrative Services, the author of the revised Procedural Bylaw 17/2024, with respect to the many questions raised in my April, 4, 2024 email seeking clarity with respect to the rewrite of the section on notices of motion.

FULL BLOG

An opportunity for Council to debate the revised Procedural Bylaw 17/2024 at second reading occurred as agenda item 5a at the Regular Council Meeting on April 22, 2024.

However, at the outset, when the agenda for the meeting was to be approved, Councillor Nagel introduced an amendment on behalf of Councillor McFadden that item 5a be deferred until a later date as she was unable to participate that evening because of illness.

When Administration was asked by Councillor Wilson if there were any “dramatic consequences” of tabling the item until the next council meeting, Ms. Stacey Loe, Executive Director, Legislative Services, replied that “the only impact would be that you continue to operate under the existing procedural bylaw that is in effect” (Procedural Bylaw 19/2019). The amended agenda with item 5a being removed was approved 6-1 with Councillor Reed opposed.

Agenda item 8a, pertained to a notice of motion by Mayor Genung (starting at 2:32:51 minutes in the video for the meeting). That item was presumably included in the agenda with the expectation that the revised Procedural Bylaw 17/2024 would be adopted that evening. At that point in the meeting, Mayor Genung declared, “I do need to relinquish the chair at this point”. . Declaring it the first time that he had made a notice of motion, he advised Councillor Flowers that it was “unchartered territory” for the both of them and asked, “will you accept the chair”. Her answering “I will”, sounding a bit like a matrimonial ceremony. Indeed, it was “unchartered territory” in that there was nothing in the existing Procedural Bylaw 19/2019 prescribing such a procedure, but, rather, in a new clause incorporated as part of section 4.3 of the draft Procedural Bylaw 17/2024, whose debate and adoption had earlier been deferred to a later date. In essence, the mayor was jumping the gun, implementing a process which had not yet been adopted by Council. Remember Ms. Stacey Loe, Executive Director, Legislative Services, earlier indicating that “the only impact” of deferring debate and discussion on the revised Procedural Bylaw 17/2024 would be that Council “would continue to operate under the existing procedural bylaw that is in effect”.

Noteworthy, that I had heard such a clause before on January 12, 2023, when the mayor’s response to my drawing attention to his violating 4.2(c) of the existing Procedural Bylaw was that “That section of the bylaw is specific to the Mayor making motions within the meeting”. In her January 9, 2024 response to my December 18, 2023 email, “Seeking Clarity from the Town’s Administration”, Ms. Stacey Loe, Executive Director, Corporate Services, essentially repeated what the mayor had said a year earlier, namely, “that the intent of this section when drafted was that it apply to instances where the Presiding Officer wished to bring forward a Notice of Motion, or place a motion on the floor for debate”.

Councillor Reed questioned a delay of dealing with the revised procedural bylaw claiming that the Council already had two chances to speak to this issue, which is untrue, as the draft Procedural Bylaw 17/2024 was first revealed for first reading (really just bringing the bylaw to floor without debate or vote at this stage) at the April 8, 2024 Regular Council Meeting. If he was familiar with the existing Procedural Bylaw 19/2019, he would understand as per section 11.3 (f) that, “Council shall vote on the motion for first reading of a Bylaw without amendment or debate”, that is, no speaking to the bylaw.

Although the agenda was clear that item 5a in the agenda pertained to second reading for Procedural Bylaw 17/2024, Councillor Fedeyko thought that it pertained Councillor McFadden’s notice of motion related to a statement of disclosure bylaw.

Two Councillors expressed that they were surprised and confused about the proceedings undertaken by the mayor to bring forward a notice of motion.  Councillor Fedeyko indicated that she was “unsure” of what was going on and asked, “are we debating this night?”. She expressed the correct understanding, according to the existing procedural bylaw, that it goes to the floor and debate is held off, concluding that she was “not sure of the whole rigmarole as to what is going on with the procedural bylaw”. The latter is understandable given the chaotic way that notices of motion have been handled with the obliging permission of the Administration. At that point someone from Administration, presumably Brett Hawken, Manager, Legislative Services, declared, “you are allowed to debate a motion that is on the floor for a notice of motion because it follows the procedural process that comes forward tonight”, thereby making up rules on the fly because that procedural process, as described in draft Procedural Bylaw 17/2024, did not come forward that night.

Councillor Nagel, while appreciating the “new format” allowing the mayor to make a motion – a new format,  by the way, that had not yet been approved – said that he was “a little lost on this notice of motion thing”, and that he expected (in accord with 7.2 (a)(ii) of the existing Procedural Bylaw 19/2019) that a two-thirds vote would be needed to put a notice of motion on the floor for debate and vote. At that point, the mayor shook his head and Councillor Nagel accepted that as a “no, okay”, accepting the advice of a man who hasn’t been properly following the procedure for notices of motion as per the existing the Procedural Bylaw 19/2019 for some time. Into his third term, Councillor Nagel is still a “little lost”, which is somewhat understandable given that the Administration with its allowance of a chaotic approach to notices of motion was not helping these lost sheep.

What happened with the mayor’s notice of motion just adds to the history of the town’s arbitrary, erratic treatment of a notice of motion. The Administration instead of ensuring that it was properly applied, as clearly written in the existing Procedural Bylaw 19/2019, to avoid acknowledging their failure to do so, decided to rework that section such that it is so corrupted that it no longer resembles what constitutes a notice of motion and, in the process, creates confusion. That section, 7.2, of the 2024 Bylaw, entitled “Notices of Motion”, should more appropriately be entitled something like “Councillor Motions”, because it certainly does not describe a notice of motion.

In my April 4, 2024 email to Ms. Jaylene Knight, Director, Legislative & Administrative Services, the author of the revised Procedural Bylaw 17/2024, and Town Council, I suggested that they consult with our MLA Peter Guthrie with respect to how the Alberta Legislature handles notices of motion.

UPDATE, April 24, 2024

As per my suggestion above that our MLA, Peter Guthries, a legislator, be consulted to get an understanding of how notices of motions are handled, I decided to do so myself expecting that none of them would choose to do so.  Upon receiving an answer to my query from Mr. Guthrie, I sent the following email to Ms. Knight and the Town Council:

In my April 4, 2024 email to you, I had recommended that you consult with our local MLA, Peter Guthrie, to get a better understanding of the nature of a notice of motion.

Presuming that no one has taken up that recommendation, I contacted Mr. Guthrie this morning asking him the following question: 
“As a legislator, I have a question for you related to how the Alberta Legislature handles notices of motion. When a notice of motion is given in the legislature, is it then immediately subject to debate and vote?” 

He replied as follows: 
“With notice the motion is not heard immediately.  It will be scheduled at another time but there is not necessarily a set time for it to come forward.  If it is an emergency motion (without notice) then we vote right away if it will be heard.”

Mr. Guthrie confirms what I have said many times, namely, that a notice of motion, as is clear from 7.2 (b) [“A notice must be given without discussion of the matter”] of the existing Procedural Bylaw 19/2019, is not subject to debate and vote. The example of section 32(4) of the City of Edmonton’s Procedural Bylaw, couldn’t make it any clearer, “The giving of notice of motion is not debatable”.

The Administration instead of ensuring that it was properly applied, as clearly written in the existing Procedural Bylaw 19/2019, to avoid acknowledging their failure to do so, decided to rework that section related to notices of motion such that it was so corrupted that it no longer resembles what constitutes a notice of motion. That section, 7.2, of the draft revised Procedural Bylaw 17/2024, entitled “Notices of Motion”, should more appropriately be entitled something like “Councillor Motions”, because it certainly does not describe a notice of motion.

In my April 4, 2024 email, I raised several questions related to confusing aspects of the new version of the ‘Notices of Motion” section of the revised draft procedural bylaw and still have not received a reply to my queries seeking clarity.