Council vote embarrasses Vernon mayor

One part of a mayor’s job is to be a spokesperson for council.

Sometimes, that means defending and explaining decisions and votes the mayor doesn’t agree with.

But when councils make decisions that are plainly wrong, who can blame a mayor for refusing to be the compliant spokesperson?

And so when Vernon Mayor Victor Cumming was instructed to forward a council resolution to the province supporting the right of churches to hold superspreader services during a pandemic, he made sure Health Minister Adrian Dix knew there were two sensible people on council who opposed this measure — Cumming and Coun. Brian Quiring.

Coun. Scott Anderson, who brought forward the motion, wasn’t impressed.

“It is the responsibility of the Mayor to speak for Council in official communiques like this, and not speak for himself,” Anderson wrote the mayor.

“By underlining himself as ‘opposed,’ he is in effect sabotaging the intent of the letter by standing apart from it and making it clear that he disagrees with it, as if to say, ‘they made me do it but please ignore it because I disagree with it’ ... it’s arrogant, petulant, and quite possibly a failure of duty to the office of mayor.”

That Anderson a provincial Conservative known not to run with the crowd, would oppose sensible public health measures isn’t unexpected. That most of Vernon council would support him was.

The church ban was imposed by Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry to help stop the spread of COVID-19.

Most church leaders, surely, would rather be meeting in-person, but they’re doing their public duty — without complaints — to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.

With generally older congregations, church services could be deadly. That’s one of Dr. Henry’s concerns.

Churches are expected to be leading forces in a community for good. They are expected to set good examples and most churches are doing that.

Churches ignoring the ban — like one in Kelowna and others in B.C., in the Fraser Valley particularly, are being selfish and reckless. They apparently don’t care if COVID spreads. Vernon council doesn’t seem to care either.

These folks only care about themselves — or at least that’s what their behaviour indicates.

A town councillor in Langley has proposed churches should lose their tax exemptions if they violate provincial health orders.

“I’m angry that I’m paying extra taxes to subsidize these organizations,” Coun. Kim Richter is quoted as saying in a CBC news story.

“I don’t think it’s fair that an organization that is getting subsidized by public monies should be allowed to put the public at risk through their wilful behaviours and actions in a period of time when we are in a global pandemic and under provincial emergency rules,” said Richter.

The outlier Kelowna church has received $2,300 tickets from the Mounties. If they don’t pay, the payment due will go to a bill collector.

But they and other churches are challenging the tickets in court on constitutional grounds. They have freedom of religion, they claim.

Ah yes, but charter rights aren’t absolute. They are subject to “reasonable limits.”

A harder line may indeed be needed to bring these churches into line. That’s what Richter is proposing.

And Vernon council should not only rescind it’s terrible motion, it should pass a new motion apologizing to Dix for wasting his time.