Secrecy, detailed

Former Halifax
councillor Harry McInroy was arguably one of the worst councillors in
the history of HRM—his repeated meeting absences became something of
a running joke, and when he did bother to appear, he was ill-prepared
and mumbled inane comments. His Cole Harbour constituency no doubt
sighed in relief when McInroy, who opted not to run for re-election,
was replaced by the capable Lorelei Nicoll in the October 18, 2008
municipal election.

But no matter. Just 10 days later, at its October 28 meeting,
council decided to appoint McInroy to the Halifax Water Commission. Did
no other candidates, with better work habits, apply for the position,
or was this simply a courtesy appointment for a former colleague
without concern for the best interests of the water commission? We
don’t know: discussion of McInroy’s appointment was held in secret.

Like all of council’s appointments to boards and commissions, the
secrecy surrounding McInroy’s appointment was justified as a
“personnel” matter, meant to protect the privacy of the applicants.

That justification is nonsense. Privacy protection is rightly
accorded civil servants who are hired to implement policy decisions
made by others. But the policy makers themselves—the members of
boards and commissions—should not be given privacy protection; the
public has not just the right, but the duty, to scrutinize those making
policy decisions. Such public scrutiny is the very essence of
democracy.

In fact, most other city councils in Canada and the US make such
appointments in public meetings, as did the former cities of Dartmouth
and Halifax. “People applied, and we discussed them, let the chips fall
where they may,” explains former Dartmouth mayor Gloria McCluskey, who
now sits on the HRM council.

In any event, McInroy evidently wasn’t much interested in the job,
and sometime over the next few months—just as the water commission
needed all the help it could muster to deal with the sewage plant
disaster—he left the commission.

McInroy’s appointment was just one of 71 issues discussed in 30
secret, or “in camera,” council meetings in 2008. I’ve analyzed each of
those issues, and have assessed whether they were an appropriate use of
secrecy. (The complete analysis—including spreadsheet—is at
thecoast.ca/bites.) I found that
23 of the discussions (33 percent) were improperly secret. Another 21
discussions (30 percent) were partially improper. Just 26 of the secret
discussions (37 percent) were held properly.

As with McInroy’s appointment, many of the discussions were held in
secret simply to hide potential contentious political decisions. For
example, an applicant to the Police Commission was rejected, likely
because he advocated for a civilian review board to investigate
allegations of police misconduct.

Council has the right to make the political decision not to have a
civilian review board, but such decisions should be made in public, not
behind closed doors.

Council is often simply reflexively secret, holding secret meetings
for absurd or meaningless reasons, as evidenced by secret discussions
of a disagreement with the federal government over “in lieu” payments
for Citadel Hill National Park, or by a letter council wrote to the
Utility and Review Board over regulation of energy efficiency programs.
In both cases, the secrecy served no purpose at all, as all the
information was immediately available from federal and provincial
sources, respectively. (It will come as no surprise that council wants
the feds to pay more money for Citadel Hill, and an effective energy
efficiency program.)

Deciding to hold in camera council discussions and withhold
information from the public should be an extraordinary event, an action
that should cause everyone pause and deep consideration. And yet, there
is no written policy guiding how council holds secret meetings or what
information should or should not be released to the public.

In practice, public disclosure is spotty and inconsistent. Usually,
a staff report guides council’s secret discussion, and in many
instances those reports are supposed to become part of the public
record at a later date. Last week I asked for 14 such reports related
to secret meetings in 2008.As of Wednesday morning, I’ve received
one.

In a democracy, the presumption should be that information should be
public unless there’s good reason for it not to be, but in Halifax the
presumption is the opposite.Halifax council demonstrates its contempt
for the public 63 percent of the time it meets in secret.

This article appears in Sep 24-30, 2009.