By Don White.

Well, I admit that was a surprise. If you watched the April 19 Nanaimo Council meeting you saw that the members who were previously most opposed to taking local concerns to higher levels of government had rethought their own positions.

This time around, instead of arguing that Councillor Armstrong’s motion to request Victoria review sentences imposed on chronic offenders was also outside of council’s “lane,” Councillor Thorpe concurred, “If we want changes to be made, we need to start somewhere.”

Even the Mayor signed on for the parade (although he confessed he did so only because he didn’t want voters thinking he condoned the courts ignoring criminal behaviour). With Councillor Turley following along without comment, Armstrong’s motion passed unanimously.

So on April 19, our entire Council voted to take a local issue to a higher government, i.e., have local voices heard. They all bought into the importance of a municipality representing its constituency at the level of government where actionable decisions get made and the needed funds are kept. Moreover, they tacitly acknowledged that without taking this representation forward, local views too often get lost and the solution imposed from outside may not fit.

Now we can relax, yes? With council passing along our concerns to those who have the funds and authority to implement policy province-wide, our local thinking will be taken into account? Local MLAs and MPs who now bow to party whips will no longer effectively rob us of our voices; and problems experienced in Nanaimo will be listened to and dealt with elsewhere? Uh, probably not.

If Council wants us to be actually heard at the level of government to which they take our voices, they will need to do more than merely hand over a message and then leave. The more likely scenario is that local governments will be treated in Victoria the same way voters were treated in Nanaimo by our previous municipal council. Remember that experience?

Consequently, to be effective in dealing with other levels of government, Council would be well advised to revisit how concerned voters had to act locally under the previous administration in order to bring change. Without those actions the outcomes would likely have been different.

Council would be wise also to note how some of its own members contributed to bringing about those changes. By more than just coincidence, some of the best change-agents in Nanaimo are now sitting at our current Council table.

Councillor Bonner is in front. Who can forget his countless appearances at the Question Period microphone in meetings of the previous administration? Add to those recollections the knowledge that he was also a driver of the Vote No campaign that motivated voters to turn out and reject the referendum to borrow $80M for a hockey rink.

Councillor Armstrong was equally action-oriented, although in a different way than Bonner. Armstrong chose to stand as a candidate in the by-election in order to work inside Wallace Street. She followed up her election by playing key roles in ending the reign of terror of the previous council and their managers. Voters are unlikely to ever know full details.

And there’s a third individual worth adding to the list. It’s no fluke the first motion for changing lanes to take local views to Victoria came from Councillor Ben Geselbracht. Geselbracht had a turn in front of our last Council when he was enlisted by Nanaimo’s recycling centre to plead their case. He’s no stranger to advocacy and ran successfully for Director at Large at the UBCM, an intermediate governmental level. Mark him down as experienced and pro-action.

Although Bonner, Armstrong, and Geselbracht appear to belong to different constituencies, which likely have differing values and priorities for Nanaimo, they have two essential traits in common. All three are inclined to facilitate having the voices of their fellow constituents being heard and all have experience in taking related action to help that happen. Just what’s needed in the present instance.

Having Armstrong, Bonner, and Geselbracht on board gives the current council a leg up. Now it’s time to expand this advantage to include Council’s other members. Advocating for – not just forwarding – local views will undoubtedly be crucial. Who knows what might happen if the other members become similarly action-oriented on these and other initiatives?

Without this kind of directed, persistent voter (not supplicant) action, everything we receive locally, good or bad, will continue to be imposed by those outside our community to suit their own, often unrelated purposes. And that, by definition, is truly a failure in local governance.