I’m beginning to think we need to start referring to Ward 11 council member Jeromy Farkas as the Leader of the Official Opposition on Calgary City Council.
Politicians tend to go one of two ways when they get elected locally. They either get co-opted by the administration, who has all kinds of excuses about why something can’t be done (we tried it before and it didn’t work, it costs too much, we can’t spare the administrative resources, it would expose us to legal liability, it will take us months to prepare a report, there isn’t enough time to do it, and on and on) or you have the kind of politician who ignores all the excuses and keeps pushing forward anyway, no matter how many feathers it ruffles.
Farkas shows all indications that he’s a feather ruffler, and is not going to be pressured into going along to get along. His next initiative may be his most important one yet: he wants all council decisions to be recorded electronically.
You are probably asking, aren’t they already recorded? No, they aren’t and it is a real barrier to accountability.
Before he was elected, Farkas was part of a research team that spent thousands of hours poring through agendas and minutes to create a municipal vote tracker for the Manning Centre so voters would know how their council member voted on key issues, what their attendance record was and how often council went in camera. He discovered it’s tricky to get full information: debates aren’t summarized, there is no Hansard so you don’t know why your council member voted the way they did and individual votes aren’t recorded unless a council member asks for it.
Farkas says it would be a simple matter to address much of this, starting with adopting the system used in Edmonton. On yegvotes.info, for instance, you see that Edmonton council member Andrew Knack is the real keener: he’s never missed a meeting (out of 34) and never missed a vote (out of 859). Farkas says it is his understanding that the City of Calgary already has the software to track Calgary council votes the same way; they’d just have to activate the module.
As for Hansard — the verbatim recording of debate like they have in the House of Commons and in the Alberta legislature — that wouldn’t be hard to do either. They already have transcription services to make the proceedings accessible for people whose hearing is impaired. Instead of purging the record at the end of the day, which Farkas says is the current practice, they could simply keep it and allow council members to check it prior to publication and correct the record for inaccuracies.
Farkas is putting forward a motion to get the ball rolling with the first step — the electronic voting and attendance record. It should pass unanimously. If it doesn’t, you should contact your council member to find out why they are against it. Because I can’t think of a single good reason why you shouldn’t know the voting record of the person elected to vote on your behalf.
Danielle Smith can be reached at danielle@770chqr.com
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