A Victoria council debate Thursday about how councillors participate in meetings remotely quickly spun into discussions about video surveillance, “Zoom fatigue” and the strain of having to be on camera for hours at a time.
The debate stemmed from a dispute over Ben Isitt’s efforts to multi-task during a committee of the whole meeting last week. He phoned into the meeting from Cook Street while overseeing the installation of a community warming tent for people sheltering in Beacon Hill Park.
The tent is run by the Red Cedar Cafe Society, which Isitt helped found at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic to feed people in need.
Coun. Stephen Andrew called out Isitt at the time, then brought forward a motion this week asking staff to look at amending a council bylaw so councillors are required to be visible on camera when participating in a meeting electronically.
“I think this will just level the playing field, [so] that we sitting in the chamber can see each other,” Andrew said Thursday.
Isitt apologized at the start of the meeting for not giving his undivided attention to municipal matters over the past 10 months while volunteering with the Red Cedar Cafe Society.
“I realize that this has resulted in some inefficiencies and distractions during some committee meetings,” he said.
But he and other councillors raised concerns about Andrew’s proposed remedy, pointing out the strain of having to be on camera for hours at a time — particularly when meetings stretch throughout the day.
“It seems essentially like a higher level of surveillance, in some ways, than ordinary participation in the chamber,” Isitt said.
Coun. Geoff Young, who is often at odds with Isitt on other issues, agreed with him about the stress of always being on camera without the ability to get up and stretch or get a cup of coffee. “It is, indeed, exhausting to attend a Zoom meeting, as many people have pointed out, for long periods of time,” he said. “I was unwise enough a couple of weeks ago to select a very hard flat chair for an important meeting that I had to sit through and by the end of it, I was in pain and agony.”
Young suggested it might be better to have councillors visible only to the person chairing the meeting. That way, if councillors “want to sit back or blow their nose or whatever, they can be assured that it’s not going to be webcast to the world at large.”
After a lengthy debate, council unanimously approved a variation of Young’s idea. They asked staff to explore a system whereby councillors would be visible to the chair and city clerk throughout a meeting, but only be seen by the public and the rest of council when they comment on an issue or cast a vote.
Coun. Marianne Alto said she could support the motion, as long as the situation mirrors what happens in council chambers.
“So that, for me, means that when I get up and go to the restroom or go up and get a cup of tea or go out to answer my phone, the minutes record me as stepping away.”
Alto took exception, however, to the idea that being on camera during a meeting amounts to a form of surveillance.
“I think that being watched on camera while I’m doing the business of the city is, frankly, no different than [when] I’m being watched on camera sitting here, or when I’m in the grocery store and people walk up to me and ask me questions,” she said.
“Is it sometimes a little irking when I’m in my sweatpants and I haven’t washed my hair today and I’ve got my ball cap on? Sure. Is it why my son no longer shops with me? Absolutely, because it takes two and a half hours as opposed to 45 minutes. But that’s part of the job. And so I don’t consider this surveillance at all.”
— with files from Roxanne Egan-Elliott
