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Kirk LaPointe promises accountability bylaw

NPA mayoral candidate pledges to create ombudsperson’s office in Vancouver city hall
kirk lapointe
NPA mayoral candidate Kirk LaPointe (right) promises a bylaw and an ombudsman he says will provide transparency and openness at city hall. The city under Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson has been criticized by citizen groups and journalists over freedom of information policy. Photo Dan Toulgoet

If he leads the NPA to victory on Nov. 15, mayoral candidate Kirk LaPointe pledges to improve public consultation and the Freedom of Information office, enact a bylaw to routinely disclose information and remove the muzzle from bureaucrats.

“Vancouver is a great city, badly run,” LaPointe wrote Aug. 12 on his The Vancouver I Want blog. “These efforts on transparency and consultation are first steps to restore trust and rebuild the relationship that has steadily separated Gregor Robertson’s city hall from the city it should be serving.”

In an interview with the Courier, LaPointe said his plan is modelled in part on Hamburg, Germany’s transparency law passed in 2012.

“They’ve enacted a law that creates a legal obligation to disclose information and to put the onus on those that don’t want it released to argue against its release,” LaPointe said. “What it has done culturally is it has turned everything on its head. There was a routine approach to exemption where you had to argue to get it released, now you have to argue to not have it released.”

By the end of the year, the Hamburg Parliament will publish a vast array of information in an online repository, including contracts worth $100,000 or more, grant awards and construction and demolition permits. The law is intended to protect citizens from corruption and waste, strengthen trust in government and increase public participation.

LaPointe said the result of genuine openness can be better, more efficient government that fosters public trust and even forgiveness when mistakes are made.

“[Citizens] see that the process you engaged in was open and that you did your best in order to consult,” he said.

LaPointe also pledged to create an ombudsperson’s office in Vancouver city hall to act on public complaints about government administration, similar to one that exists at Toronto city hall.

LaPointe’s 35-year career in print and broadcast media included a two-year stint as the CBC ombudsman and he is on-leave during the election campaign from his post as executive director of the Organization of News Ombudsmen.

“If we’re going to create the most open government in the country this has to be one piece of it,” he said. “In my experience, it does two things: first, it ensures that some of these complaints are actually looked after. Secondly, it really does change a bit of the culture of the institution if it knows there is a public representative that is going to be there and will be a formidable watchdog. It’s a really healthy development for democracy.”

At his 2008 swearing-in, Vision Vancouver leader Robertson made a blanket transparency promise to citizens, pledging: “I will not let you down on making city hall more open and accountable.”

Since then, various citizen groups claim their complaints about development and rezoning proposals have been ignored, bureaucrats have been banned from speaking directly with reporters, heavily censored reports about civic contracting by the closed-door bid committee are available only via FOI, and a national lobby group says city hall’s FOI office remains with a C-grade. Newspapers Canada’s 2014 national FOI audit also gave Vancouver an F grade for speed of responses.

Kevin Quinlan, director of policy and communications in the mayor’s office, said Robertson was not available for comment.

A statement attributed to Coun. Geoff Meggs, which was emailed to the Courier by Vision Vancouver executive director Stepan Vdovine, accused LaPointe of “doing everything possible to avoid offering any ideas on better transit or affordable housing." 

“His latest release tries to skip over the NPA debacle that was a secret bail-out of the Olympic Village, which Mayor Robertson and Vision made public, as part of efforts that resulted in the complete repayment of the Olympic Village debt,” read the Meggs statement.

Note: this story was corrected and updated since first posted.

bob@bobmackin.ca

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