Councillors should be able to officially abstain

After Tobi Nussbaum skipped library vote, it’s clear yay or nay doesn’t reflect all views

In some ways, Ottawa council follows the immortal words of Yoda: “Do, or do not, There is no try.” In political terms: Vote yes, or vote no. There is no abstention.

It’s an imperfect metaphor, admittedly, but the shades of grey that dominate much of politics aren’t readily reflected in the way representatives must, with finality, say what they think. As it stands, if an Ottawa councillor’s a bit squirrelly on an issue that’s up for a vote, tough.

The only way for councillors to abstain on a given vote is to scarper from the chambers, and be registered as absent from the vote. (Their vote counts as a “No” if they sit there, arms crossed.) It happened last week with Rideau-Rockcliffe Coun. Tobi Nussbaum, who deliberately absented himself for the vote on the central library site. He didn’t want to actually oppose the project but also had troubles with how the site selection unfolded. Citizen reporter Jon Willing then raised the question in a blog post about whether Nussbaum’s leaving the chamber was an acceptable move by the councillor.

Nussbaum described this on his website as abstaining, but he was accused of political cowardice by fellow Coun. Stephen Blais, who tweeted: “What a chicken move. Lots of righteous indignation but not principled enough to vote against it but he’ll show up for groundbreaking photo.”

All right then, let’s do it. Let’s allow councillors to officially abstain, and have it recorded as such. That last part is key. In the House of Commons, members of Parliament can abstain, although often they’re whipped along party lines so they don’t. But at any rate, the abstention is not recorded.

It’s easy to see the problems that could cascade from changes to the certainty of the vote. Insisting upon a yay or nay may have the effect of forcing councillors to pay attention, while the option of abstaining might give them less reason (other than the fact that we pay their salaries to do this sort of thing) to carefully consider what’s in front of them. If there were too many abstentions, we could potentially see major changes being made by only a few voting councillors.

Indeed, councillors are paid to make tough decisions, so maybe they should actually have to make them instead of pussyfooting around.

But wouldn’t it be a good idea to give councillors the option? So that they can be transparent with their thoughts about a given issue? After all, would you prefer that a politician be fully honest or be forced to one side or the other? Maybe sufficient reflection and hard work should always lead to a certain decision in favour of or opposed to whatever municipal issue is on the table. Anything would be preferable, though, to voting without conviction. Hence, the case for abstention.

More to the point, a legitimate abstention becomes a move that has to be defended. An absence can be explained away, maybe even ignored. Politicians won’t always choose to explain what they’ve done or why they’ve missed a vote. But if you’re on record as officially sitting on the fence, that’s an opportunity for the media and the public to ask more questions. This can only be healthy for municipal politics, both as an airing of ongoing grievances and as recognition that politics can’t always be broken into two discrete camps.

Decisions must be made at some point, and it’s usually taken as a symbol that something’s gone right if there’s a good, solid majority on one side of an issue. But issues aren’t always cut and dried.

“Impossible to see, the future is,” says Yoda. So maybe prescribing positive changes to politics isn’t quite so straightforward. But it sure seems like politicians would do better, and politics would be better, if the way it all happened more resembled — or at least acknowledged — reality, with all the capriciousness and confusion and murkiness that comes with big decisions.