Too many questions.
That was the main reason cited by Renfrew’s mayor to explain his decision to “postpone” the regular meeting of Renfrew Town Council scheduled for this past September 9, 2025. A decision made a couple of hours before puck drop.
Too many questions?
One has to wonder from whom, as in who has all these questions that brings the town to an abrupt halt, not so much in a functional day-to-day manner, but in the way things like democratic responsibility, democratic process, transparency, and accountability are handled, and by extension, respected.
It appears that those notions of responsibility, process, transparency, and accountability are the things the mayor, and maybe even the staff that hide behind his cover, are concerned about, as in how the pursuit and stewardship of these notions can bring embarrassment upon people. And we all know how people bristle when being asked to account for their decisions.
Who were the people with all the questions? Councillors? The only people who are allowed to ask questions within the confines of a council meeting? Are they the problem?
Are councillors not allowed to ask questions of administration? Are they not allowed to seek answers as part of their mandate? Are these the folks we’re hiding from?
Is it the citizenry? Are they not allowed to ask questions? They’re the ones who pay the freight through their tax dollars, and the ones who elect (at east in theory since Renfrew’s voting turnout is absolutely abysmal) the political representatives who, through their votes at council, direct municipal policy. Do things like responsibility, process, transparency, and accountability not apply to them? Not matter to them? Do they have zero right to seek information? To seek answers?
Are elected town councillors and the taxpayers who elected them nothing more than mere nuisances, people to be barely tolerated only because that’s how the system was set up and designed?
Is this where we are? Sorry, another question.
The law of the land dictates that public entities observe and practice a democratic process. Yet behind the scenes, and now more than ever out in the open, unelected persons appear to work mightily and diligently to either water down these democratic expectations or remove them from the ledger completely.
Perception and reality are two different things, but they still remain related. Reality is, of course, what happens. Perception, on the other hand, is how that reality is viewed through any lens applied to it. It’s sort of how report cards at school function. Here’s the standard (the expectation), here’s the numbers (reality) and here’s the interpretation (perception) that bridges the expectation to the reality.
I’ve been following council more or less for a year now, more strenuously and with greater detail in the early going, far less so now. But I’ve never really taken my eye totally off what happens at the Low Square Palace, a cheap shot thrown in there to remind people of that cute little renovation at Town Hall that went grotesquely over-budget, just like seemingly everything else in this town. I didn’t pay for that or any of the other over-budget items, you did.
In the time I’ve been paying attention, I’ve seen case after case after case of democratic abuse, including the over-the-top use of closed meetings, frail and conflicting accountability processes, freedom of information requirements, staff surliness at being called to account, and a generalized feeling that the folks who work in that newly renovated building would be more than delighted to never have to face a citizen or elected councillor again, owing to that nuisance factor. These people don’t like your questions, and they sure as hell don’t want to answer them, as doing so would shed embarrassing light upon some of the membership, past and present. Also, I surmise they feel that disclosure of certain information would bring senior staff, again past and present, into disrepute for the ham-handed and, in some cases downright negligent decisions that have been made and the reasons behind those decisions.
One legitimate question a person may have, at the risk of being considered a nuisance, is how much cover, support, encouragement, and complicity these faceless apparatchiks receive from the elected officials themselves?
From where I sit, and based upon my observations, my perception is that, as far as elected councillors go, there are none among them who are are actively or even tangentially involved in any attempt to subvert the democratic process. That perception also applies to the reeve, who was acclaimed.
That perception changes when I view the actions of the mayor, the Head of Council.
The way things appear to be set up, the mayor seems to function as some sort of intermediary between council and staff. But the mayor is a politician, an elected official. If anyone represents the face of democracy here in town, it’s going to be him. And yet his actions leave me with with even more questions.
Closed meetings. A cloak of secrecy. Backroom and hallway threats to whip people into line. Perceived coercion with staff. Perceived complicity with staff. The use of Strong Mayor powers to give the town clerk a promotion and pay bump unilaterally, before renouncing publicly those same Strong Mayor powers after doing his clerk this significant solid. Has he ever responded to an email or answered a call?
And now cancelled meetings, more generously referred to as “postponed” meetings.
Because there may be too many questions, and that staff needed to be better prepared? So I ask, better prepared for what? To get their stories straight?
Because to me, part of earning your $150,000 per year salary as a staffer means you’re expected to be prepared always, at all times. You shouldn’t need an additional two weeks to get “prepared” for legitimate questions arising from your actions. Needing the additional time, that much additional time, gives off a certain smell, and it’s not one of the nicer ones. It smacks of collusion, and it smacks of an attempt to build up and reinforce the barricades.
I don’t know about you, but when the people who work for us build fences around themselves to keep us out, then we’ve got ourselves a bit of an inconsistency when it comes to the whole democracy thing. And with that you can throw in responsibility, process, transparency and accountability.
This isn’t leadership, it’s acquiescence at best, and complicity at worst. We have to remember, the current mayor is a fellow who’s been around the place for awhile, a former committee chair at a time when the department answering to that committee ran amok with your tax dollars, something you’ll be paying for decades. In that time, he’s probably built up relationships with members of staff. Having been challenged by council earlier in his mandate, perhaps he’s found common cause with an administrative staff equally annoyed by the pestering of elected councillors. Sort of like “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” kind of thing.
My question, never to be answered, is this:
Has the mayor planted his feet firmly in the camp of the administrative staff? Has he walked away from his political responsibilities? His democratic responsibilities?
All relevant and pertinent questions. But questions nonetheless.
The type of questions that get scheduled meetings that are part of the democratic process cancelled.
Expect more of the same unless and until something can be done.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 