Vision Vancouver puts a muzzle on city staff

by Charlie Smith on November 22nd, 2010 at 3:06 PM

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Vision Vancouver appears to have taken a page out of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's playbook.

Anyone who took the time to read Lawrence Martin's Harperland: The Politics of Control will know that Canada is governed by a control freak.

The Harper government has prevented civil servants, including scientists, from speaking to the media without first going through a cumbersome approval process.

One scientist was banned from giving a speech about a novel about climate change.

Judging from a blog post by city-hall watcher Frances Bula, it appears that Vision Vancouver under Mayor Gregor Robertson is copying Harper's communications strategy.

The city's spokesperson, Wendy Stewart, told Bula that three city planners were not allowed to speak to the media about their reports.

This is incredible. Bula and other journalists, including myself, have spoken to staff countless times to get them to explain their reports. It's a sad day at Vancouver City Hall if Vision Vancouver and its hired gun, city manager Penny Ballem, have decided to silence these public servants.

The muzzling isn't new. When I called the chief licence inspector last year on a licensing issue, I got a call back from Ballem. Ballem's predecessor, Judy Rogers, never got in the way of reporters' calls to senior staff.

Only now, it appears to have become a formal policy. If Vision Vancouver has any guts, it will bring forward a motion before council on why it feels it's necessary to muzzle city staff.

Of course, that would result in a real debate—something Vision Vancouver avoids at nearly every opportunity.

The Gordon Campbell regime, which employed Ballem as a deputy health minister, is notorious for cutting off media access to public servants. Even the communications staff aren't allowed to be quoted by name under most circumstances.

Now, this has extended to the city level.

Governments that shut down communications do so out of fear. Vision Vancouver is running scared. It's afraid of journalists. It's afraid of voters.

Vision politicians ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Follow Charlie Smith on Twitter at twitter.com/csmithstraight.

Comments

19 Comments

Ken Lawson

Nov 22, 2010 at 3:42pm

Thats the NDP for you at any level of government!

RealityCheck

Nov 22, 2010 at 5:02pm

This is disgraceful! Gregor Robertson must resign at once!

Taxpayers R Us

Nov 22, 2010 at 6:27pm

Vision is by far the most ridiculous government Vancouver has ever had, and I'm saying this as a leftist. What happens when the cyclists pull their support? That's pretty much all Vision has going for them.

?

Nov 22, 2010 at 6:43pm

With the open hostility shown by reporters in this city I'm not surprised.

LTD.Edition

Nov 22, 2010 at 6:50pm

Well C Smith... what are you going to do about it?

More importantly, what are we as citizens going to do about it?

the_rest_of_us

Nov 22, 2010 at 6:53pm

Pegor Robertson is in serious need of perspective. (I say Pegor cause in my perspective it seems as though he's forcefully "peging" his policies into the city)

His fiefdom's real job is to listen and consult with the voting public, and then make decisions accordingly. There is a clear lack of this process of and the bike lanes are but one of several examples.

TVW

Nov 22, 2010 at 9:43pm

I challenge you all to discover more of the truth and less of the hype. What were the planners going to say to the media? Would it be something that would add yet more fire to the fuel of the SEFC quagmire that the previous party left for Vision Vancouver to deal with? Or was it that VV is putting forward a mandate that would help create a sustainable world for the next generation and those with a limited view of the future oppose steering into that direction?

Birdy

Nov 22, 2010 at 11:01pm

re: TVW
"VV is putting forward a mandate that would help create a sustainable world for the next generation"

How exactly does the exponentially growing debt mountain that Vision is creating make for a "sustainable world"?

Do you honestly believe that a handful of poorly planned bike lanes and a god damn constitution for chickens is going to save the world? Or are you just getting paid to push this line of bullshit by the Tides/Endswell/Hollyhock cartel?

ps: I challenge you to stop drinking Happy Planet Kool-Aid

james green

Nov 22, 2010 at 11:07pm

TVW you need to take off your partisan hat and open your eyes.
Vision Vancouver is sadly the best of the worst we can get in civic government barring a resurgence of COPE and that is not likely because COPE has become a band of lapdogs of Vision.
Having said that, there has never been a civic goverment that is as dictatorial and closed as this one. That includes the city manager who is nothing short of being a dispot. Go to some council meetings, visit some of the Committees around the city, talk to city staff and you will find that Meggs, MaGee, Ballen, the Mayor are closed to the voices or will of the Vancouver people and truly believe that anyone who disagrees with them is a F--king hack as the mayor said some time ago.
If this party of merry spend thrifts are going to have a chance of being reelected then they better start to live up to the words the mayor spoke at his swearing in and that was that he would have an open civic party.
Stopping staff from speaking without control of their mesage is so Steven Harper I feel sick to my stomach.
Furthermore if Gregor is going to regain any credibility he must fire Bellan the city manager and his chief of staff Mike Magee as these two are running the city into the ground with their control freak behaviours.
He must limit Louie and Stevensens power and begin running the city like a real leader not act like a puppet of the other Vision puppet masters.
Lastly, many had faith that Gregor would be different and fair and open to the people but sadly in his second year in "power" he has become arrogant and with his party has decided he knows best and everyone else be damnned. So to TVw you do some research as I suggest above and come back here and tell me that I am wrong and back it up.
And heaven forbid, should we ever have an NPA mayor and council again.