City considers rule changes for closed-door meetings

Saskatoon city council is poised to consider new rules for reporting on what happens at closed-door meetings.

The rules suggest council reconvene in public following an incamera meeting to report on what was discussed, any motions that were adopted and why the items are being kept confidential.

How this approach would be implemented remains to be seen. The proposed changes will be considered at Monday’s first meeting of the new governance and priorities committee that includes all council members.

The changes are being proposed in response to amendments to the provincial Cities Act that require municipalities to pass a new law governing procedures on meeting behind closed doors and transparency.

Joe Garcea, a professor in political studies at the University of Saskatchewan, said in-camera rules like these aim to strike a “delicate” balance.

“There’s a tension between the public’s right to know and the need for councillors to discuss certain things confidentially,” Garcea said. “You’ve got the virtue of transparency, but the challenge of delivering that from an administrative perspective.”

He pointed out a key shortcoming could be that no member of the public or the news media is likely to be in attendance when the public portion of the meeting resumes after the in-camera session.

The finance committee and the now-defunct executive committee have accounted for almost all of the in-camera meetings since a new governance structure was adopted in 2014. Councillors have said the private sessions tend to be unpredictable in terms of how long they will last.

The Cities Act stipulates business by city councils must be conducted in public, but allows for exemptions to discuss sensitive items such as legal advice, personnel matters and business transactions such as land sales.

No bylaws can be passed behind closed doors in Saskatchewan, but the act does not explicitly prohibit motions from being passed.

Garcea said the move toward greater transparency at the municipal level is part of a Canada-wide trend. The rules being proposed for Saskatoon city council should give residents greater knowledge about what is being discussed behind closed doors, he said, but the amount of detail reported back will be key.

“I think there’s considerable discretion still in the hands of the councillors,” Garcea said. “They have to say that they’ve been discussing strategic planning, but they don’t have to say what the content of that discussion was.”

There’s a tension between the public’s right to know and the need for councillors to discuss certain things confidentially.