So the West Vancouver council, faced with introducing a code of conduct it did not initially wish to support, has decided it can develop one on its own.
Brace for it: The regulated are about to create the regulations.
In a tidy, terse few moments of choreographed decision-making Monday, a committee of council was proposed by Coun. Peter Lambur to rework an earlier proposed code over the next 90 days toward what he termed “good governance and getting this right.” That passed unanimously.
Mayor Mark Sager chimed in that the committee will “ensure that what comes forward is in fact workable and constructive.” But it is worth asking: For whom?
For future reference, it will be wise to remember those two adjectives. “Workable” and “constructive” mean strikingly different things, and certainly in this case depending on whether you’re the overseer or the overseen.
To reiterate for the record, a code of conduct is an unnecessary proposition in the first place. There are many ways to police elected officials who steal, lie, harass, defame, deceive, what have you. These laws are more enforceable and their consequences more severe than most anything a council could self-style. A code of its making is more likely to be symbolic than meaningful in promoting ethical behaviour.
Unless you’re seeking window dressing – as appears the case here – we don’t need yet another layer of platitudes and bromides as moral administration. We have a “workable” and “constructive” framework for decision-making and behaviour already.
But if we’re going to apply a needless coat of paint, as seems evident from Monday’s meeting, the absolute worst people to turn to among the seven billion-plus on the planet are the seven council members. Not that they’re inherently bad, just that they’re in the worst possible position to find a path forward that doesn’t travel through territory of real or perceived self-interest.
A basic principle of ethical conduct – and, presumably, of public life – is to avoid conflicts of interest, even the perception of them. In this case, it is impossible for council to be impartial actors in this process. How could it be expected to be otherwise?
Even sorrier, it can be inferred from Monday’s meeting that this council committee will guide staff on fashioning version 2.0 of the code away from public view. Just as Lambur’s motion Monday had to meet the prior approval of Sager and his slate of supporting councillors, the same style of decree is bound to govern the generation of the new code before it comes back to the chamber.
Any further lack of transparency in this conflicted process is deeply troubling. If the creation of the code is in council’s hands, then the public needs to witness its sculpting. We need to witness how leadership is applied on this issue, who advocates and argues against what, and how compromises were produced. It is time to see how the sausage is made.
If you were going to get it right, as Lambur put it, council needed to take a step back and commission an independent body to create the code. Second-best would have been public involvement on its committee. Its actions Monday suggest council doesn’t trust anyone but itself to privately create its rulebook.
Sager noted that other Metro Vancouver councils are writing their codes through their own committees, too. This is true, but hardly good news, unless they choose to conduct their work openly.
Through a lack of self-awareness, through hubris, through this we-know-what’s-best gesture, council has made a dubious idea even worse. Before it has even created a code of respectful behaviour, it has disrespected the public.
Its efforts reminded me of driving on the highway a few days ago behind someone with a sofa on his roof. The driver, of course, had his left hand out the window with a firm grasp on the hulking furniture. Delusion is humankind’s great feature.
My spider sense suggests this code is about to be watered down like a drink at a remote beach bar on a scalding hot afternoon. Prove me wrong, please.
Kirk LaPointe is publisher and executive editor of BIV as well as vice-president, editorial, Glacier Media Group, the North Shore News’ parent company. He is also a West Vancouverite.
