By Don White.

Back on May 5, 2020, a City of Nanaimo news release announced the creation of The Mayor’s Task Force on Recovery and Resilience. The stated purpose was “to address upcoming economic impacts, community resiliency and provide a path forward for recovery so the City and other organizations within the community can focus on urgent current issues.”

As set up, the Task Force included Mayor Leonard Krog, Councillor Tyler Brown, and five members from the community: a private accounting firm, the Nanaimo Port Authority, United Way, Vancouver Island University, and Snuneymuxw First Nation. Its mandate was “to provide strategic recommendations to Council” to inform strategic plans by the end of September 2020 – although the Mayor can extend the term or mandate at his discretion.

That had to sound good to everyone. Coming two months after WHO belatedly declared the COVID-19 pandemic, the creation of The Mayor’s Task Force was both timely and reassuring. Nanaimo’s need for economic recovery was already disturbingly evident. Many businesses had shut down; people were out of work; large numbers were struggling just to cover basic needs. Likewise for resilience, a definite requirement given the odds of future pandemics and climate change occurring. The mandate of the Task Force articulated an assurance we all needed.

Fast forward to today when Leonard Krog appears now to have exercised the option for a term extension. Although nothing seems to have been stated formally, and no report was presented as promised at the last council meeting of the month on September 28, a new additional meeting of The Mayor’s Task Force on Oct 16 has quietly appeared on the City’s website.

In itself, that doesn’t necessarily constitute a problem. Admittedly, recovery and resilience are big topics. There may be legitimate reasons for extending the term past the original deadline in order to deal thoroughly with issues. In truth, we do not know, so we shouldn’t be too quick to criticize. But that same lack of knowledge about what’s happening is also the most troubling.

It’s the public’s lack of information about what The Mayor’s Task Force is up to that begins to sound a bell. And when we remember that the same degree of secrecy was employed far too frequently by Nanaimo’s previous council for matters strictly of their own, the bell begins to sound more like an alarm.

This is not to claim there are similar nefarious dealings going on in the current Council, or in The Mayor’s Task Force on Recovery and Resilience. I’m only pointing out that for whatever reasons, the group has shrouded itself in secrecy. To date, the entire posted public record of the committee’s activities consists of only meeting minutes – minutes that should be detailed and illuminating, but in this case are anything but informative.

From the first meeting on May 14 until the sixth meeting on July 31, the minutes provide details only of a series of backgrounder presentations made by City managers and staff, officials from bodies like the John Howard Society, United Way, NRGH, Nanaimo Airport, Port Authority, and VIU. These seem obviously intended to bring members up to speed. Good so far.

Other than a simple listing of those presentations, however, no information on Task Force activities is listed in the minutes. The minutes note only discussion during presentations, but nothing following. They tell the public nothing about deliberations, progress, the issues being addressed, or even the direction the group is moving. And the reason all that information is missing from the minutes is because … wait for it … immediately following the scheduled presentations, the Mayor’s Task Force always goes in camera.

In the five meetings held during June and July, the Task Force disappeared in camera after the backgrounder presentations for the full remainder of those meetings. In the meetings on Sept 11 and Sept 25, there were no presentations and the entire sessions were closed to the public viewing. It’s that all-encompassing total secrecy of the Mayor’s Task Force on Recovery and Resilience, for whatever reason, that creates the major problem.

The reasons cited for going in camera are two provisions in the City’s constitution. Discussion can be held behind closed doors for negotiations respecting the proposed provision of a municipal service; and/or if they involve the provincial government or the federal government or a third party. Fair enough. Quite likely these matters came up in the discussions.

However, I confess to having difficulty believing that all that time spent in camera met those criteria. I have trouble accepting that no detail of any aspect fell outside those topics and could be provided to the public. But that is what The Mayor’s Task Force is suggesting by its process.

As a result, we the Nanaimo public are completely blind. We know nothing of the planned strategies for increasing Nanaimo’s recovery and resilience. We don’t know if such strategies exist or whether they are even a consideration. Is the Task Force recommending the City contract for remedial or supportive services? Are new hires on the table? Paid for by Victoria or Ottawa? Will the City, itself, provide us with support? Are initiatives or programs being planned?

Which takes us to some broader questions. Is Council sanctioning the approach of The Mayor’s Task Force at the expense of values that every member claimed in their 2018 campaigns? This process runs counter to the stated intentions of this Council to increase transparency on Wallace street. And conversely: are recovery and resilience receiving more than the meager lip service that The Mayor’s Task Force is giving to transparency?

Given the devastation of COVID-19, we must hope so. We can only hope because we are limited by the non-disclosure. We don’t know whether the content of the discussions justifies in camera secrecy or whether the lack of transparency is only to obscure a lack of accomplishment and fiddling while Rome burns.

As of now, the earliest we may get some answers to our questions is – perhaps – October 16. Whether we actually will is presently unknown. However, let’s assume the information will be publicly released. Let’s assume our current Council is different from our last and that the extensive in camera sessions are not simply a repeat of the 2014-18 term. Let’s assume the Mayor’s Task Force had good reasons for all the hours spent in camera and not just because they forgot, perhaps unmindfully, to keep the rest of us informed – even though we need it.

Let’s ignore for the moment that the Task Force’s lack of transparency amounts to disrespect of voters. Let’s think – at least for the interim – that the ideas, tools, and strategies developed by the Mayor’s Task Force are soon to be disclosed, along with the promised path forward for recovery.

Out here, away from Council, there are more good reasons to keep up hope. In this pandemic, there’s a lot of hurting happening, and its going on far longer than many of us anticipated. Recovery, according to the experts, is most likely to be a many-years-long project. As we head into COVID-19’s second wave, we need all the resilience possible. And hope is a part of that.