Almost 1,000 pages of council correspondence previously kept from the public have been released by North Cowichan following a freedom-of-information request.

Under council policy, only a select few items of public correspondence make it onto the “consent agenda” at council meetings. The vast majority of correspondence is seen only by council members and staff, with the public deliberately excluded.

sixmountains.ca sought greater transparency through FOI, receiving 982 pages of correspondence that were not on the council consent agenda for five council meetings — April 17, May 1, May 15, June 19, and July 17, 2024.

North Cowichan released the documents after payment of a fee of $118.11 for electronic copies.

The municipality also redacted the names of the individuals who authored the correspondence, while including the names of businesses. sixmountains.ca has appealed those redactions to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner.

The public deserves greater transparency from its local government.

Know there are good reasons for having access to council correspondence.

It is a way to gauge what’s on peoples’ minds, learn more about issues of the day.

Correspondence is also a form of lobbying, a way for people to persuade council to take specific action on issues. As such, it’s important to know who is doing the asking, and even whether they are residents of the municipality.

Note that individuals who speak in person at council meetings already provide their names and addresses, as do individuals who speak at public hearings.

Since early 2023, the authors of correspondence appearing on the consent agenda are also named. Personal information, such as addresses and emails, is still redacted.

https://www.sixmountains.ca/article/66b902fe-8ad9-4087-a46c-ee900fd3434d .

Yet the municipality applies a different standard when people express their concerns via the municipal email, council@northcowichan.ca.

Note that if there are factual errors in the correspondence, there is no way for the public to make corrections for council’s benefit or to offer a counter-argument.

Furthermore, a citizen who is personally attacked in the correspondence would not know and would have no ability to respond.

Also, there is no way of knowing whether council failed to take action on a matter of importance brought to their attention — which can be equally important.

The Consent Agenda Policy stipulates that council members receive electronic copies of all correspondence — but not all correspondence is included on the consent agenda.

In fact, the vast majority of correspondence remains hidden from public view and scrutiny, and those that do appear often involve letters from other governments.

During the five council meetings covered by the FOI request, the consent agendas contained just two concerns from the public: Peter Rusland sought a “ban of tire-wear chemical 6PPD-quinone on Canadian roads,” and a 37-home residential strata opposed pickleball “in any form” at Cowichan Sportsplex due to noise fears.

Consent agendas may include “correspondence requiring action” as well as a variety of other matters, such as approval of council minutes, advisory committee recommendations, information items, financial statements, etc.

If a council member wishes to consider a request for action, the item must be removed from the consent agenda for consideration.

Among the correspondence that would not qualify for inclusion on the consent agenda: personal opinions submitted by individual citizens or organizations, media releases, newsletters, and unsolicited mail; correspondence related to an in-camera decision or a confidential matter; profanity, intimidation or defamation.

Frequently, public questions are answered directly by senior staff or the Mayor without the correspondence being included on the consent agenda. Municipal responses can be informative to a wider number of individuals, further making the case for such documents to be made public.

Chief Administrative Officer Ted Swabey said in an email to sixmountains.ca that he does not support changing the existing policy, arguing that the FOI process “continues to be the most effective method of obtaining copies of general Council correspondence.”

North Cowichan has a legal obligation under provincial law to “protect personal information in its custody and control,” he said.

“While we appreciate it is your opinion that ‘people who choose to correspond with council should have no expectation of privacy,’ this is not how all members of the public feel about their personal information.

“We respect there are valid reasons why someone may not want their name, address and other personal information disclosed and the personal information of individuals is protected by North Cowichan in accordance” with provincial law.

"Business contact information, however, is not protected…and this explains why some names were disclosed to you in the FOI response.”

Swabey added: “We do not believe there is sufficient interest to justify the additional staff time to disclose online all public correspondence to Council, nor is there the same justification to disclose personal information as is present for requests to Council for action.”

What do you think? Write council@northcowichan.ca, and send a copy to sixmountains.ca. Remember, if you want action on any issue, specifically ask for it rather than just express an opinion.

The complete FOI documents are available at https://www.sixmountains.ca/foi-documents .

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— Larry Pynn, Nov. 2, 2024.