Why We Urgently Need to Fix Consultation in Ottawa
Democracy dies in the dark. Municipal officials are helping to draw the blinds.
Consultation by the City of Ottawa has become more performative than substantive.
This is a more serious issue than most people appreciate. The quality of municipal engagement has implications for the health of our democracy.
Let’s look at the state of public engagement in Ottawa, why it matters, and six ways to fix it.
The Good
When City of Ottawa Councillors consult their residents directly, it’s usually a pretty good experience. Good in the sense that Councillors make sure people feel heard, even if the outcome is not what those people were looking for.
Likewise, the process in advance of the upcoming rural summit has been very positive. I’d consider it a model of how consultation should be done throughout all of Ottawa.
Look at the photos in this Tweet. Workshops in advance to prepare for the summit. People engaged in face to face discussions. Informed, meaningful and respectful conversations.
I’ll bet they even had snacks!
The Bad and the Ugly
But other recent examples of City consultation have been terrible. Truly terrible.
There is a go-to model that the City uses, particularly if they expect a difference of opinions.
The meetings are on Zoom.
They are time-bound, and then cut off at the end regardless of whether questions have been answered or not.
Participants do not have the option to speak. Then can only write in questions to a private inbox, and hope that the moderator reads their question.
There is no opportunity for follow-up questions, or to challenge a statement made by the presenters.
Participants cannot provide comments, only questions.
There is no Chat function, to allow participants to cross-talk, or comment live.
I would argue this type of “consultation” does more harm than good.
People do not feel heard, and leave the consultation angry and upset.
But more importantly, the format is all one-way. There is no listening and learning by the City. No attempt to understand what the community might think about a proposal, or discover local insights that a third party consultant could miss.
This is exactly what happened at a recent consultation.
Bank Street study on AT and transit
I, and probably some of you, attended a recent consultation on improving active transportation and transit on Bank Street between the 417 and the Canal.
It was a case study in how not to do a consultation. It followed the model described above.
The project manager who ran the event stated that the evening’s goal was to get “feedback on the four options” presented for reconfiguring the street.
At no point were participants invited or given an opportunity to voice their preference for one option over another.
People were not able to turn on their mics. People who put up their hand were ignored.
I sent in 7 questions. The moderator only asked 4 of those questions.
People left angry. People left with a sense that they had been manipulated. That the evening was little more than a box-ticking exercise, for the City to meet some regulatory requirement.
Following the event, I did a totally unscientific poll on Twitter. 89% of respondents who had participated in the consultation thought it was not effective.
If I were the project manager or the communications consultant and this was my meeting, I’d be ashamed at the outcome. I be looking for a better solution for the next public consultation.
So here you go, City. Six easy ways that you can do better public engagement.
1. Treat consultation as an opportunity to improve
Here’s a good staring point for improving consultations. Engage the public like you want to hear from the public.
Most city consultations are hyper-local by nature. Consulting on a stretch of road in a specific neighbourhood. That sort of thing.
That neighbourhood will include people scared at the prospect of change. There will always be NIMBYs who come out to fight any change.
But that neighbourhood also has a lot of people who know the area better than anyone else. Better than a Laurier Ave project manager, or a third party consultant who may not even live in the city.
If you can cut through the noise of the NIMBYs, those neighbours probably understand better than anyone what sort of solution would work best.
2. Use Zoom as a complement to in-person meetings, not a replacement
Zoom has become a tool for organizers to reach more people.
But it has become a tool for organizers to cut out real engagement. The City of Ottawa is limiting the functionality of Zoom (see points below) in order to prevent a real discussion and to “control the narrative”.
Don’t forget what Justice Horgan had to say about that:
I’d like to see an in-person discussion, followed by a Zoom meeting for those unable to attend IRL.
3. Allow people to speak for themselves
Public engagement is messy. When you open a mic, there will be grandstanders. There will be people who drone on.
But that’s democracy. People are allowed to have opposing views. People are allowed to be afraid of change.
The fewer opportunities a City provides residents to engage, the worse the experience will be. But that’s the fault of the authorities. The city has excluded people from meaningfully contributing to something that is immediate and relevant to their lives, and so when they do finally open the floor, people release that bottled up rage.
In a Q&A format, allow people to speak for themselves. Having a moderator recite some written questions, while ignoring others, is insulting.
4. On Zoom, use the public “Chat” function rather than the private “Q&A” function
It’s only fair that the public can use the Chat function to provide their feedback in real time. And to learn from one another.
Cities that disable Chat are simply trying to control the message, rather than let the public introduce alternative viewpoints.
5. Keep the meeting open for as long as people have questions
The City gives the public one or maybe two opportunities to engage live. But once the meeting begins, the City starts counting down the clock.
As soon as the scheduled hours arrives, the meeting is brought to a close.
6. On Zoom, record the event
For an online meeting, record the event so that those who cannot be present can watch the discussion later at their own convenience.
Remarkably, this is not standard practice for City consultations. Perhaps they don’t want a verbatim record against which could be used to hold them to account.
The status quo is not good enough
I’m angry with the City over its deliberate attempt to manipulate consultations. To control the narrative and shut out any views that don’t align.
I’m angry because our City Hall is making decisions about issues that matter to people, while offering little more to those people than performative public engagement.
I’m angry because our City Hall bureaucrats are unwittingly contributing to the decline of democracy in Canada.
Catherine and I wrote at length about the importance of City Halls in protecting democracy.
When people try to engage in local issues — the issues which are often the ones closest to their heart — but get shut out, they become disillusioned with government.
Not just local government. All government.
When a would-be-authoritarian comes around, they’ve lost faith in government and let that guy get his way.
Not out of apathy. But out of a sense of powerlessness.
Powerlessness with government based, in many cases, on their one or two experiences trying to engage local government.
Democracy is worth fighting for
I plan to engage directly the Mayor and Councillors on the issue of poor consultation. I’ll bring this up at both Transportation Committee meetings and the Mayor’s Finance Committee.
Democracy dies in the dark. Municipal “consultations” are serving to create that darkness.
Personally I thought the Lansdowne consultation engagement was the worst. Most of the zoom engagement in the last year or so was about the "public" realm; views of the historical sights from the new Lansdowne 2.0 layout (podium) sort of thing. We knew three towers were proposed, and parkland was supposed to be preserved with a "natural" cover for the arena. Never anything about financials, and few details about the event facilities (stadium and arena). Important points, but this wasn't what was covered, despite the questions addressing issues like financials. The last of several 2.0 "consultations" was last September. A month later just before the Thanksgiving long weekend, a new proposal - Lansdowne 2.1 was dropped on us, which was passed by planning committee and council without consultation within 2 months. We attended consultations for at least a year on a proposal the city clearly had no intention of following through on in September. And the city dropped a significantly different proposal in October which passed council by the end of November without consultation. Two towers, the arena further encroaching on the park, and reduced retail space for starters. This was totally disingenuous engagement. So here we are tomorrow with the city opening up what I can only assume will be a repeat of a consultation process where they thumbed their noses at us once already. I think I'll take a pass on this process. Fool me once, shame on thee, fool me twice, shame on me.
It was probably the worst "consultation" I've ever attended - intentionally bad.