Councillor explodes over city hall secrecy; ‘I don’t trust you,’ he tells mayor

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This article was published 13/12/2016 (3532 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg councillor lashed out Tuesday at the politics of exclusion that keep him — and the people who elected him — out of the loop at city hall.

“Enough… enough,” Shawn Dobson (St. Charles) told council during deliberations in advance of a vote on the 2017 budget. “This secrecy crap has got to stop.”

Dobson is one of seven councillors not sitting on executive policy committee, Mayor Brian Bowman’s inner political circle.

The mayor and EPC are required to prepare a draft budget every year for council’s consideration. Bowman has promised to open up the process to include other councillors, but that hasn’t happened yet.

Dobson said that as a result of Bowman’s shuffle of EPC in early November, only four councillors had a hand in drafting the 2017 budget until its release Nov. 22. As a result, a majority of Winnipeggers did not have their elected representatives looking after their interests when the select group was determining the city’s priorities in the coming year.

“You are either part of the problem or part of the solution,” he said. “And until all of council is allowed to participate in the draft budget from the start, then the mayor and EPC are the problem.”

Compounding the problem, he said, is that EPC won’t share the information, and civic administration refuses to provide documents on the grounds that councillors who don’t sit on the committee can’t be trusted to keep matters confidential. In the end, the process excludes more than half of council from having any input.

“I am more than just a little insulted and I’ve got news for you — I don’t trust the administration,” Dobson said.

“I don’t trust EPC members. And I certainly don’t trust the mayor.”

Dobson singled out the secret transit report that revealed opening Portage and Main to pedestrians would require the purchase of 11 new buses and increase operating expenses by $1 million. The information was suppressed and became public only after former EPC member Jeff Browaty released it, he said, wondering aloud about other information that has been withheld.

“I don’t trust you because of all the secrets and reports you hide from us regular councillors,” he told Bowman. “This draft budget —so many decisions were made based on reports that I will never see. How many secrets are in there that will come to light next year?

“Many councillors in this room have been spouting the virtues of openness and transparency. Why? Because it makes good press. For those councillors, I think it’s time to take the blinders off and have a good look at this budget process. Open and transparent it’s not, but if you feel otherwise, be my guest. Keep your blinders on and support it. I for one, in a spirit of openness and transparency, will not support this budget.”

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca