A clause in Lac La Biche County's redrafted code of conduct for local politicians has prompted some head scratching. The clause gives direction to the elected representatives on how to provide information to the public and members of the media. "When participating in public forums, interviews, or communicating information of Council's actions to the public and media, Councillors shall endeavor to communicate accurate and unbiased information,” the document reads.
A clause in Lac La Biche County’ s redrafted code of conduct for local politicians has prompted some head scratching. The clause gives direction to the elected representatives on how to provide information to the public and members of the media.
“When participating in public forums, interviews, or communicating information of Council’ s actions to the public and media, Councillors shall endeavor to communicate accurate and unbiased information,” the document reads.
What does “unbiased” mean? Aren’ t councillors allowed to publicly express opinions on political happenings, councillor Dave Phillips asked. Both of those questions were addressed in a meeting of council’ s policy review committee on Wednesday.
Councillor MJ Siebold, who chairs the committee, said expressions of opinions on council’ s doings should be fine as long as it’ s clear who the opinions belong to. Politicians should be free to publicly disagree with council’ s decisions as long as they respect them, she said.
“It’ s more about not hammering decisions that have been made,” she said, adding that differences of opinion are a fundamental aspect of every political discussion. “We’ re not going to agree on everything and that’ s to be expected.”
Assistant chief administrative officer Melanie McConnell said the code of conduct isn’ t meant to keep councillors from explaining their take on matters when the public-or the POST or any other media outlet-is asking.
“If you vote for or against something, you have the right to say why,” said McConnell.
The code of conduct has been undergoing a review for some time. An updated and amended version of it should be presented for approval at an upcoming regular council meeting, but county administrators have some homework to do first.
Another clause in the document, giving direction on who and what to keep in mind in any official decision-making scenario, needs further review and Alberta Municipal Affairs will take a gander at it.
“The primary obligation of Council Members is to represent the best interest of Lac La Biche County in all decision making fora,” the paragraph reads. “This accountability supersedes all other interest.”
What about councillors who sit on other boards in the community as part of their duties? They’ re appointed to those positions precisely because they’ re councillors, but are they then acting as board members or as county politicians in that capacity?
Siebold said the distinction has been clear to her in the past-“If you’ re at a board meeting, you’ re there as a board member. That’ s how I’ ve interpreted it,” she said.
However, the code of conduct raises questions about where the limits are in a councillor’ s role. McConnell said it’ s hard to capture that in words because each instance is different.
“Everything is so dependent on the situation,” she said, adding that the code of conduct still needs “more work administratively.”
The document will be reviewed by council as a whole at a later meeting.
