Victoria councillors were wrong to deliberately turn off the webcast of an update to city council from a First Nations City Family representative on next steps in the reconciliation process, says Coun. Geoff Young.
“I felt it would have been better to have it with the webcast turned on,” Young said following the meeting.
“It was in public, but, unfortunately, in practical terms it wasn’t available to members of the public who hadn’t made a special effort and been alerted.”
While the public was not shut out from council chambers, councillors agreed not to live-stream the presentation from Florence Dick, a member of the appointed City Family advisory body struck to guide councillors on city reconciliation efforts, because it was a witness ceremony. Under Lekwungen tradition, no recording of such ceremonies is allowed, Mayor Lisa Helps said.
Dick spoke of “next steps” planned by the City Family in the wake of the removal last year of Sir John A. Macdonald’s statue from outside city hall, Helps said.
Those steps include a “cultural celebration” showcasing the traditions of the Lekwungen-speaking people and other Indigenous people now living in the area, she said.
“What Florence shared is that there needs to be a balance,” Helps said.
“We took a step by removing the John A. Macdonald statue and now there needs to be an Indigenous ceremony — an Indigenous response.”
Young said Helps gave councillors a heads-up about the need to turn off the camera a couple of days ago — something, he said, he thought was not appropriate.
“Inasmuch as the recommendations from the City Family can have significant public impacts — obviously the Sir John A. Macdonald statue-removal recommendation being the most important one — I felt it should have been webcast like any other component of our meeting,” Young said.
“There were special protocol procedures, which, I guess, made it a little unusual, but I thought the most fundamental issue was the fact that it effectively was not being in public.”
In an interview, Helps said the meeting was public. The portion involving Dick simply wasn’t broadcast out of respect for the Lekwungen tradition.
“It was a witness ceremony and it’s a Lekwungen ceremony where people are called to witness and a speaker talks and the witnesses hear, and then the witnesses respond,” Helps said.
City clerk Chris Coates was called to witness what was shared by Dick, so the presentation will be in the meeting minutes.
Ironically, Young’s objections raised during discussion over approval of the agenda were also not broadcast, apparently due to a technical glitch.
Helps said the webcast “was broken” at 9 a.m. at the meeting’s start.
“But we always are recording a backup, so right now staff are working to patch the backup of the approval of the agenda and everything that happens during the regular course of business into the webcast,” she said.
City staff added the backup recording of the missing portions on Thursday afternoon.
A lack of public consultation over the decision to remove the statue last August led to protests and a divisive debate. City council agreed to remove the statue in the interest of reconciliation with First Nations, acting on the recommendation the City Family, which includes Helps, three other city council members and Indigenous community members.
A sign erected in the statue’s place reads: “In 2017, the City of Victoria began a journey of truth and reconciliation with the Lekwungen peoples, the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations, on whose territories the city stands.”
The statue remains in storage.
The City Family believes there needs to be an Indigenous response to the removal of the statue, “kind of honouring that that action had taken place and carrying out some form of potlatch or something that will be determined,” Helps said.
“That will then allow us all as a community to take a next step in terms of a conversation in terms of where the statue and in what context the statue will re-emerge.”
