2025-12-03 GFPID meeting – Part 4

This is the fourth post in our series about the Gabriola Fire Protection Improvement meeting that took place on December 3rd, 2025.

The first post about the 2025-12-03 meeting provides an introduction, links, and useful background information. Our transcription of the meeting itself begins in the second post of this series and continues in the third post.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

REPORTS

• Corporate Officer Report
• Fire Chief Report
• Training Report
• Association Report

BUSINESS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES and UNFINISHED BUSINESS

• Privacy Commissioner
• Privacy Management Update
• Bylaw XXX: Fire Department Establishing Bylaw
• Communication Policy

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REPORTS

CORPORATE OFFICER REPORT

(APPROX 2:47:15)

CORPORATE OFFICER: For the corporate officer report. The only thing that I wanted to bring up that we hadn't had an auditor's contract yet. I received it at about 3:30 today. So, because we were starting to get panicked, and so we will look at that and get ready for the audit.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: I’d just like to say, thank you for doing this. I think this is a valuable addition to this organization, this report. So thank you.

FIRE CHIEF REPORT

[ED: with the exception of some last minute numbers such as the Call Volume Report, information in this report is included in the meeting package.]

(APPROX 2:47:52)

CHAIR: All right, fire chief’s report. Would you like to do that, sir?

CHIEF: All right. Welcome everyone. So the current fire hazard rating is low, category one fires are permitted. Burn barrels are permitted at this time, category two and three. We just request that people get permits through the office or by emailing [unclear].

Call volume report. So for the month of November, calls from January 1 to December 2, total of 430 calls. For the month of November there was 34 in total, they break down as follows: 1 investigation, 1 alarms activated, 1 public assist, 1 wires down, 30 first responder, for a total of 34.

So monthly, monthly operational review. So over the winter months, equipment testing will be taking place, including CVI, servicing of pumps, amongst other maintenance and tasks. The new auto ex[traction] equipment is now on the, on our new rescue, rescue 3, and the training has been complete, so the membership are quite impressed with the new tools. We are just completing our first live fire term with Safer Ocean Systems, which has been a great success. And I’ll bring that up further in my report on SOS.

Community events and initiatives. So yeah, the trustees introduced a new fund called the Jay Dearman fund. This fund has been created to memorize our fallen firefighter Jay Dearman. It will support our junior firefighting program and assist junior members attending academies such as Ignite and the Junior Female Firefighter Program. This has also been discussed to support an anniversary run in Jay's name.

There's a coming initiative, important initiative, tree chipping, that the Deputy’s organized. This Christmas tree chipping will be taking place on January 10th at the Fire Hall Number One here, so please bring your tree if you’d like to donate to that.

As well, there will be the Jay Dearman Father's Day run in June, and we're working on planning that.

The FireSmart team has been, has been busy doing lots of home assessments and they have just about completed their mandate of those for the year.

The truck committee has reviewed the options and have put forward a plan for a three-quarter ton Chevrolet diesel pickup. This truck will be outfitted with a canopy, sirens, and we anticipate… This truck has been ordered, and the vehicle should arrive late February. So the officers are looking forward to that new addition.

Winter training is underway, focusing, we'll focus on chaining up and preparing for freezing conditions. All trucks will be equipped with new snow chains, even our newest engine.

Ongoing projects. We've been working hard on the burn building, getting that finalized from our new UMBC grant. I'm currently reviewing to see if we qualify for the BC Employers Grant. We hope to enroll some several Fire Officers in upcoming courses to see if they're eligible.

Staffing and budget considerations. This will be a motion I'll be looking for from the board to recognize. I've been chatting with Mudge Island Fire, their little fire brigade over there, and they're interested. So I'd like to sell our old extrication equipment to Mudge Island for $4,000. We've already received $4,500 as a payback credit from Holmatro as part of our purchase initiative. So essentially, we've already got that money back. So [unclear] that just helps to support Mudge and [unclear] ourselves if we get some money back.

Safer Ocean Systems. So a little review on how we made out from January to November. So $20,000 in rent has come in. Course fees, $40,345 for a total revenue of $60,300. Expenses… Instructors wages, $16,430.92. And then, if we look at where we put, put some of that money, we put $30,000 into auto-ex equipment, that was a motion made. And we put, we painted the burn building, and we bought paint for Hall Two at $1,879.75. All labour for the painting was donated. A big thank you to Captain Bandel from Bandel Construction and Lieutenant Manning from Architrave that supported their hours into that. After expenses and purchases, total balance of $12,024.75 that we have as a surplus from Safer Ocean Systems to date.

Upcoming… So there was a course that just finished today. It was a basic course that ran December 2-3^rd, and those fees haven’t been incorporated in this report. For the new year we have a total of eight scheduled courses for the new year, subject to change, but Basic Marine Fire Fighting and Refresher to Advanced Marine Fire Fighting and Advanced Refresher are the courses that are currently offered, And thank you to our, thank you for your continued support for fire safety on Gabriola.

I've also got a staff update, staffing report. So the department is at a total of 37 firefighters to date. Two chiefs, one Temporary Corporate Officer. It breaks down as follows: 8 recruits, 17 frontline firefighters, they're certified NFPA 1001, two uncertified Firefighters in support roles, 14 EMRs,  licensed. We have four more first responders that are licensing to EMR level, just awaiting licensing on January 2 and 3^rd; and we just received 6 new candidates that started in mid-November.

Additional notes, we've filled the junior day firefighter for this year. We will be putting our — our positions roll over in the new year, so the junior and the senior and the truck manager positions are all up, and so we're requesting applications for that for those positions. The officer pool consists of seven officers, including 4 lieutenants, 1 per platoon, and 1 hall Captain per Hall. One lieutenant also manages the medical training and equipment. Duty Officer responsibilities are shared across these seven officers, including operational leadership, incident response and department coordination.

Increased workload and administrative demands due to growing administrative work includes fleet and equipment, inventory, duty officer shifts, burn inspections and fire prevention activities. The fire department has identified the need for a third position. We recommend the role as an Assistant Fire Chief, capable of providing operational and admin support and ensuring leadership to this community in the absence of the deputy or the fire chief.

Applicants have been received for the for the intern, we received a frontline application. This is a firefighter that has applied here, fully certified, and he's been working since October, and he's also filled the role as day position until the new year. But yeah, the intern has brought all his skills to us and is going to hopefully serve two years with us.

And yeah, we've had one fire or one firefighter that has resigned in the last six months. Target staffing is ideally at 40 members, 20 at either hall. Thank you.

CHAIR: Thank you.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Thank the chief for that report. I'm very glad to see that the department is looking at the BC Employers Grant. I'd like to acknowledge the effort former firefighter Ryan St Pierre put into making us aware of that opportunity, and it's nice to see the breakdown of the SOS system training program. Thank you.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: As a question for the corporate officer arising from the purchase of the new truck, as I understand it has been ordered, when will we be authorizing that expenditure by Bylaw? We authorized buying the truck—

CORPORATE OFFICER: Yeah, in the New Year.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Okay.

CORPORATE OFFICER: Yeah, you’ll have to do that. And then you guys authorized a heat pump as well.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Yes.

CORPORATE OFFICER: So once that is all done there'll be those two Bylaws in the New Year to move the money. We have enough money in our operating account that we can cover those.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: And take it out from the capital funds account?

CORPORATE OFFICER: Yes.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Okay. Thank you. Also, I just want to confirm with the Chief that, it was discussed sort of in passing previously, that staff payments from, or, payments for staff for SOS is happening in advance of courses, and that that business activity is not being subsidized by landowners any further.

CHIEF: For staff? Not for staff. We're getting, we're getting paid in advance for the course fees, to the improvement district. So we, so we got the money upfront for the course.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So then we pay — so the money we get from the course covers the staffing costs?

CORPORATE OFFICER: Yes.

CHIEF: Yes.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Okay. That was my question, thank you.

CHIEF: So we had that money in the advance, so.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: And then, I guess, and so, it’s correct to say that there’s a surplus of just over $12,000 from SOS funds. And so I would like to make a motion that that surplus be allocated to the Capital Fund for Trucks, to defray the cost of the new command vehicle.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Say that again?

TRUSTEE MERCIER: My motion is

THAT that surplus from SOS funds of $12,024.75 be allocated to the Capital Fund for Trucks, to defray the costs of the new command vehicle.

CORPORATE OFFICER: Can I recommend that we do this at the next meeting? And then we’ll have the full amount for 2024…

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Yes.

CORPORATE OFFICER: …the accurate number for 2024, then you can move it.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: That’s fair, I was [unclear].

CHAIR: Lovely, then.

(APPROX 3:01:40)

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: Just a question on the SOS side, I was curious… It says here, “nine scheduled courses,” you mentioned eight, probably it’s dynamic. I was curious—what does that equate to in terms of revenue? So right now we’ve got course fees at $40,000 for this year, and I just wonder how many courses that, do you know what I mean?

CHIEF: Yeah, they’re very dynamic because we can have eight to twelve students in there. We do hold a minimum of eight students as a minimum. So I could [unclear]

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: But it could be higher.

CHIEF: Yeah. It could be higher, and then of course they just cancelled today on us, so that’s why it went from nine to eight.

CORPORATE OFFICER: They have to give about a month’s notice now?

CHIEF: Yeah.

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: How many courses do we run in that January to November timeframe, just kind of roughly?

CHIEF: I was talking about six.

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: Okay. Thank you.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: And so my understanding is that the fixed minimum fee of eight attendees is $5400 bucks a course?

CHIEF: [unclear]

CHAIR: We good?

[multiple voices]

CORPORATE OFFICER: [unclear]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Is there—

CORPORATE OFFICER: [unclear]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Right. So the contract that we signed specified one class of course, but we, that’s changed now, we’re now teaching two or three different types of course? So when, the contract that was signed specifies that we would engage in discussions with SOS to expand the scope of training being offered, and that has changed. Has the contract gone through a process of amendment, has, like, how is that change formalized and reported?

CHIEF: They have changed the days on us a little bit.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: But, I mean—

CHIEF: We can go to [unclear] and create a new agreement if you like.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: It’s not that I’d like, it’s—initially we are contracted to provide, like, basic firefighter level 1, something, I don’t have it in front of me. But then there’s also, Marine Firefighter it says that we’re also training for now, and some other thing… but that’s not reflected in the existing contract.

CHIEF: So essentially there’s just two courses, well, there’s four courses. There’s Basic Firefighter, and then there’s Advanced. And then there’s the Basic Refresher that supports the Basic that’s mandatory every five years, and the same for the Advanced. We talked a little bit about it in contract, there’s been a little bit of work on their end with Transport Canada, Basic got a little bit shorter, a little bit longer, for the Advanced, a little bit shorter. They just came up with a day rate for us, I’m happy to provide the day rate. But they equal—it just came out of the flat fee. Just to support that. It’s mandatory that gotta provide [unclear], there was no mandatory before this contract.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: I guess my concern is that these contractual changes are being documented and authorized by the board, so that we don’t run into a situation, as we’ve run into today, with, like Amui, where we have, we’re operating in excess of what the contract specifies.

CHIEF: We’re happy to make those changes and [unclear].

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So do we need a motion or can we agree generally that, like, the Chief should provide an updated statement of what services we’re providing, like of how the service portion of this contract has changed? And that it be submitted to the board for review and authorization? Do we need a motion? And I guess presumably the facilities and equipment that we’re providing, or the staffing level we’re providing, is changing as these courses take place.

CHIEF: The staffing stays the same.

TRUSTEE MOHER: And the building stays the same, and everything else stays the same.

CHIEF: Yeah.

TRUSTEE MOHER: So nothing that we’re responsible for changes.

CHAIR: Do we have general agreement on that?

TRUSTEE MERCIER: I just want to make sure, because I don’t know how closely everybody’s looked at the contract. So the contract covered, it’s in two portions, there’s a lease agreement and a service agreement portion. The service provision portion, section 1.5, says, “This agreement covers the training for STCW Medical, MED Basic Safety. However, the contractor agrees to discuss how it can reasonably the client’s creation of additional training for the STCW Advanced Firefighting course, and any deemed domestic vessel safety, that may be [unclear] at the mutual agreement of these additional services.” So if we have engaged in that discussion, to reasonably support the client’s creation of blabby-blah, the board is not aware of that. And that would involve material changes for the contract, which only covers training for STCW Basic Safety. If we’ve expanded the services we’re providing, that’s material change to the contract, that needs to be reflected in the document and submitted to the board for approval. Otherwise there is no contract for those services, and we’re just providing them on some kind of unsupervised [unclear].

CHIEF: I think there’s just some confusion with the names, they’ve always included Basic Firefighting, and Advanced, they’re just using different terminology.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: But the agreement covers only one Basic Safety course. Like, this agreement covers the training for STCW Medical Basic Safety. And then we’re supposed to discuss expanding this thing. If we’ve expanded that, the board needs to be aware of those discussions, how they took place and who authorized the changes.

CHAIR: Can we do that at a further meeting?

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Um, I mean, can we—

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Can we get a report on this from the Chief?

CHAIR: I would suggest that we allow, with what you’ve given the Chief to chew on here—

TRUSTEE MOHER: Time to chew on it.

CHAIR: —that he prepare—

[multiple voices]

CHIEF: Can I bring the material to you at the next board meeting?

CHAIR: That’s what I would suggest.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So—

TRUSTEE MOHER: It’ll also show what’s the purview of the chief, and what’s—like, I know where we are, in charge of, the legal aspect is [inclear] the lease, it’s the land and stuff. The contents of the training are probably operational, so we still need the clarity on [unclear].

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Can I ask about this distinction you’re making, between governance and operations, because I don’t understand.

TRUSTEE MOHER: Okay, we should probably have a meeting around that, because it comes up, and it was in the Brownlee report, and the Brownlee report distinctly said, numerous times, that there had to be stronger clarifications, stronger boundaries, between the board of trustees and the firehall with regards to operations, and the job of the trustees. So maybe we can pull that out and go through it again, because it was in a lot of [unclear].

 

TRUSTEE MERCIER:  Just give me a sec, I’ll do that right now.

TRUSTEE MOHER: No, I’d prefer you do it later, because—

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Okay—

TRUSTEE MOHER: —this is a fulsome conversation that we need to do, and we also [unclear] at the governance meeting, so we need to have a really big conversation, it’s after 7:00 and we still have stuff to do.

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: I have a motion to propose. Which is

THAT the Chief report on the changes to the service provision of the SOS contract, and provide records of those changes at the next general meeting.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: I’ll second that.

CHAIR: Any further discussion?

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: [to Chief] You said you’re good with that?

CHIEF: Yeah.

CHAIR: All right then? In the affirmative, raise your hand. Carried.

CHIEF: One more point of business, just for a matter of [unclear]. Can I get a motion that we sell the 30 year old auto-ex to Mudge?

TRUSTEE MOHER: For $4000?

CHIEF: For $4000.

[unclear]

TRUSTEE MOHER: I’ll second that.

CHAIR: Motion seconded. Any discussion?

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Have you talked to them?

CHIEF: Yeah, yeah. Their leader, Chad, is happy to take them and looking forward to them.

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: So it doesn't detract from our level of service?

CHIEF: No. We removed them off the trucks, and we've trained everyone on the new stuff. There is some repairs needed. That's why…

TRUSTEE MERCIER: $4000?

CHIEF: Yeah.

CHAIR: Hands up in the affirmative. Carried.

CHAIR: Now where are we at?

TRUSTEE MOHER: Do we need to do the other motions [unclear]?

(APPROX 3:11:00)

CHIEF: Oh, yeah, and then there's [unclear]. Yeah, so GERTIE came to me, and it brought to the board's attention that they want to use the generator—down at the old hall, there was an old propane generator that was there, [unclear] nineties, and they want to add it into the lease agreement. Basically—everyone's been provided the lease agreement? Basically the lease agreement states that they take full responsibility for that generator, and that the improvement district washes their hands of responsibility of it, and if it needs to be replaced, it's on those terms. [There’s no?] budget to replace it.

We’ve also changed out, we, at the time when we were doing the GERTIE agreement, we were looking at maybe using a little bit of propane to keep the building heated. In the last five years, or four years since they've been in the contract, they haven't used any propane. [unclear] propane four years ago. So there was a provision for 10% and I've asked them to remove that. We don't want to take any percentage of the propane. It’s solely their responsibility. So [unclear] the board to support the changes, the amendment.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: So you talked to GERTIE about this, or—

CHIEF: Yeah.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: —what is it? The community Bus Association or something?

CHIEF: Yeah. I brought it to their attention. They said they were mostly, they’re on it, but they had to [unclear, take it to their board?]

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: The propane generator, does that have to, is that a disposal of a capital asset or not?

CHIEF: I think it's been probably depreciated.

CORPORATE OFFICER: We can check on that.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Yeah, so I don't have an issue with it. It's just, it's a detail that needs to be worked out. If it's a capital asset I’m sure—

CORPORATE OFFICER: It’s still ours and they’re using it—

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: What’s that?

CORPORATE OFFICER: we're just giving them authorization to use it, we’re not giving it to them. What is saying is, if it dies—they’ll have to—

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: We should write it off at this point.

CHAIR: That'll be the accountant and the CPA that—

CORPORATE OFFICER: Yeah.

CHAIR: —deal with it, right? And maybe Finance Committee for—

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: We’re kind of giving it away.

CHAIR: Yeah.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Which is fine. I don't think it's on the books for anything, but—

TRUSTEE MERCIER[?]: As long as it's not [unclear] the building [unclear].

CHAIR: And it's for, it's for GERTIE, you know? So yeah, it's all good.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So I would like to make the motion

THAT the Board approve the changes to the GERTIE contract as circulated in advance of the meeting.

CHAIR: I'll second that. Any discussion further? Hands in the air in the affirmative. Carried.

CHIEF: The other agreement I brought your attention is the BCEHS agreement. It was something that we worked out last, when the cyc bomb [ED: bomb cyclone weather event] took place last October. It was an emergency agreement that we put in place, just operationally, to get, to keep services working, and Trustee Bussler brought it to our attention, and we just need to formalize it. So I've done that, I've formalized it and sent the board and BCEHS the contract.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Why is the cost set so high?

CHIEF: Because we don't want it to be a long term solution. We want them to find a, their own generator, and be self sufficient. So in the, subject to that, we just put $1,000. I mean, they do have four staff here. Probably market value for a hotel room for all four would be 250 bucks each, plus we're housing two ambulances. So it sort of falls in line with what I think [unclear]. But also, we not going to give away the service. We don’t want to make it a permanent solution.

CHAIR: They're not necessarily going to use it, except in an emergency.

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: Any time the power goes out for more than an hour.

CHAIR: Oh, for more than an hour.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Do they have to activate it, like can they choose to just hang out there?

CHIEF: That's their call. That's not our determination. We just put in the clause that, when activation per our duty officer. There's a process—

[multiple voices]

CHIEF: But demobilization and activation, it's all up to them.

CHAIR: I make that motion. Second?

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Just, this formal wording of the motion, would the formal wording of the motion be “that the BCEHS hosting agreement be approved as circulated in advance of the meeting”?

CHAIR: Yes, I think that’s what we were talking about.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Yes. [unclear]

CHAIR: Thank you for that. So we have a seconder. Any more discussion?

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: It's my understanding that BCHS is also good with the contract, right?

CHIEF: Right.

CHAIR: So can we say hands in the air? In the affirmative? Okay, that’s carried. All right then.

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MOTIONS CARRIED in this section of the meeting:

MOTION To approve the sale of old auto ex equipment - CARRIED

MOTION To approve revisions to the Gertie contract (to add propane generator into the lease agreement and take responsibility for it; need to check on whether its depreciation of capital asset/writeof) - CARRIED

MOTION To approve BC Emergency Health Services (BCEHS) agreement - CARRIED

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TRAINING REPORT

(APPROX 3:17:55)

CHAIR: Training report.

DEPUTY CHIEF: I’ll be quick. November 4, we did car accident with patient care. November 12, we did water supply. November 18, we did hypoglycemia and naxolone overview. November 25 we had the Holmatro Auto-X training night where Holmatro came over and explained maintenance and operation of the tools we purchased. December 2, we did frostbite, hypothermia.

Next week, December 9, we’re gonna do critical incident stress management, presented by a local person. And then December 16, we're doing pre fire planning.

And two members signed up for Fire Instructor 2 at the JIBC. That's my training report.

MULTIPLE VOICES: Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Short and sweet.

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ASSOCIATION REPORT

(APPROX 3:19:15)

CHIEF: A big thanks to the Association, they’re organizing a bunch of events over Christmas. They'll be the food and toy drive this Saturday, four o'clock. It starts down at Silva Bay. And then there's the light up at Silva Bay the following Saturday, down at Silva Bay, where we’ll be present.

TRUSTEE MOHER: And it's appreciated, because they're stopping at the Community Hall pick up from anybody that's coming to Gabriola Island Singers Christmas concert on Saturday. People are bringing things there, and the fire hall graciously agreed to stop and pick anything up that we've gathered there. So we really appreciated that, because people [unclear].

CHIEF: Yeah, and then, of course, the Association wants to make sure that everyone's been invited to the annual Christmas party as well. So yeah, if you haven’t got an invite to [unclear].

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BUSINESS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES and UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Privacy Commissioner

(APPROX 3:20:15)

CHAIR: Sooo I think we're on the Privacy Commissioner, no?

CORPORATE OFFICER: Yes.

CHAIR: I was going to say we have listed here, because this is written, I guess, earlier today, that we have no pending FOIs, but we received one today, and of course, you know, I'm not at liberty to mention who or what or where or whatever, but we will be dealing with that as soon as possible. Okay, so, questions…?

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Privacy Management Update

(APPROX 3:20:40)

CHAIR: All right, so we're on to the privacy management update, which is ongoing.

CORPORATE OFFICER: Yeah, it’s just a standing item.

CHAIR: So are we dealing with that, or are we just kind of, we're skating for a bit on that privacy management?

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: The Privacy Management Program should be being developed.

CHAIR: Yes, but we haven't developed it, and we're going to develop it. So that's where we're at right now. We have not finished the work.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Has the work begun?

CHAIR: I'm not sure. I’m really not sure.

TRUSTEE MOHER: [to Corporate Officer] You did a few things…

CORPORATE OFFICER: Yeah, I did a rough draft.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: But has a file audit been done, as required by the [unclear] and—

TRUSTEE MOHER: No, we have to clear up a couple of other things before we do the file audit, and one of those is determining whether or not OneDrive is held in Canada or not. And we haven't done that yet, and then we have to do the audit, based on our answer for that, but we're still waiting on OneDrive information—

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: It shouldn't be dependent—

[multiple voices]

(APPROX 3:20:53)

TRUSTEE MOHER: I'm not talking to this anymore, because I’ve brought it up three or four times.

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: My question is, like we just went through a recruitment process. The applications for potential recruits to the fire department included information about their marital status, I believe their medical status, and requested their social insurance number. So to my knowledge, we don't have a policy in place for how information like that is stored, secured or accessed. So we are gathering protected private information, storing protected private information, but we don't have any procedure in place, or management policy, or anything in place for how that information is managed. So we're, we're acting without the next step.

CORPORATE OFFICER: [unclear]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Yes, but like, where physically is that information stored, where digitally is that information stored? How are those things managed? Like, there's a, there's a whole checklist, right, for a privacy management thing, and for, like, a process to go through to establish a privacy management program. Trustee Chorneyko’s talked about it. I talked about it. We've circulated the documents from the OIPC, and we've resolved to work so, as the board, will work with the corporate officer to do that. Has work been done?

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: That was a mistake in the minutes in October. It was the chair that was supposed to work with the Corporate Officer.

[multiple voices, Fire Chief excuses himself]

CHAIR: So I dunno how to move on this, because I’m not the chair of that, I don't think I was ever a member of a policy management—

TRUSTEE MOHER: No, David said he [unclear], and that where—

[multiple voices]

CHAIR: —I know you’ve expressed interest, certainly you have. [unclear who he is talking to]

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: And we passed the motion.

CHAIR: We passed the motion. But who’s doing the work?

TRUSTEE MERCIER: I'm happy to take the answer to my question. That's fine. I have a question with respect to, I think it falls under this section of the agenda, with respect to the privacy breach. Has any work been done towards notifying those affected by the privacy breach?

CORPORATE OFFICER: Yeah, go to number six. [referencing agenda item 6 under Business Arising]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Okay, sorry, I got confused with the headings, that is number six.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: So I can answer your question. The motion that we passed [ED: in October general meeting] is

THAT the board accept the Privacy Management Program Outline submitted by Trustee Chorneyko - and THAT the Corporate Officer be directed to work with the Chair to establish a Privacy Management Program - and THAT the Corporate Officer report on progress towards the establishment of a Privacy Management Program at each regular General Meeting of the board until further notice.

That’s what we passed. What was minuted in the October meetings was “that the corporate officer be directed to work with the board.” And so that's a mistake in the minutes from October.

CHAIR: All right, just so we're clear, there's been a change of chair. So when you made that motion, I think, or when we discussed this, the chair—

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: You adopted, you adopted this responsibility.

CHAIR: That's correct, and yes, I've adopted that responsibility from the previous chair.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Yep.

CHAIR: Okay.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: From a board resolution.

CHAIR: So I don't, I don't mind doing it, and I'm in the process of doing that with the RCMP, the story goes on—[to audience] and hang around for the whole story—and that's where we're at right now. I'm not the chair or anything of any particular committee, but I am the Chair, and I will deal with this, and I have been dealing with this, and I'm going to hope, I hope I can report during the question and answer period on that whole hot potato.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Am I correct…? In response to that resolution, the corporate officers is supposed to report at every meeting about progress for the privacy management plan?

CHAIR: Yes. Yes. She hasn’t had a chance to report—

CORPORATE OFFICER: The report is, I sent it out two months ago [unclear].

TRUSTEE MERCIER: That’s, you sent out a policy, not a program. Like—

CORPORATE OFFICER: No, the program was there too, [unclear].

TRUSTEE MERCIER: But the program requires that certain tasks be completed, like, like an audit.

CORPORATE OFFICER: Yes.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: But it wasn't, but that hasn't been and—

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: —the Corporate Officer and Chair to establish.

CHAIR: But to be clear here, while you were the Chair, you didn't get that work done.

TRUSTEE MOHER: No.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: No, because that was passed in October, and I resigned as chair on October 22^nd.

CHAIR: Right.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: And when I went to the office to begin work on that, both yourself and Trustee Moher objected most strenuously to my request to that access file, and so I withdrew my attempt. [To ??] You may recall that. you were sitting right beside him.

CHAIR: Yeah, I was, yes, I was, I was a witness to all that. Yep, sure was. But that’s something for another day, don’t you think? Or maybe later.

[Simultaneous background conversation between Trustee Moher and unknown party]

CHAIR: Can we move on? Are we moving on?

TRUSTEE MOHER:  Yes, please.

CORPORATE OFFICER: Yes.

CHAIR: Anybody else got anything say about that? Work is in progress.

Hopefully it'll be very soon, and there'll be more a little later.

---

Bylaw XXX: Fire Department Establishing Bylaw

(APPROX 3:27:10)

CHAIR: All right, Bylaw XXX, the fire department—

TRUSTEE MOHER:: It’s a standing item.

CHAIR: —standing item.

[multiple voices]

CORPORATE OFFICER: So just put that—

WM: So at the November meeting, relevant to this, it was resolved that the corporate officer was to consult with the Office of the Inspector of Municipalities about the best way to incorporate the sort of activity described by the SOS service agreement into the authority of the Gabriola Volunteer Fire Department, which is this bylaw. Has there been any result?

CORPORATE OFFICER: I haven’t heard anything back yet.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So you’ve reached out to them and they haven’t got back. Thank you.

CHAIR: They've been kind of non-responsive lately.

CORPORATE OFFICER: Well, I was going to say, they were on strike, and then they went straight into budget time, so…

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Fair.

CHAIR: I don’t know what's going on at, in Victoria, but where they [unclear] immediately lately, I don't know if that's holiday things going on, or they're understaffed or what, but you don't get an immediate response sometimes. Leave a message.

---

Communication Policy

(APPROX 3:28:10)

CHAIR: All right, the communication policy.  John?

TRUSTEE MOELLER: So we've been attaching communications to the agenda for the last little while, and I think that's problematic for a number of reasons. Main one is that there's defamation laws in Canada that state that if you repeat something that is defamatory, you can be held liable, as much as a person who originally wrote it. And so I've created a policy to sort of address that.

So I just want to make a motion that the policy be adopted, and if there's a seconder we can discuss it.

TRUSTEE MOHER: [raises hand]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: I'm going to raise an objection to the consideration of the question for Robert's Rule of Orders section 26.1, because I believe it to be desirable that the assembly avoid consideration of the question, since there is no expectation that the corporate officer had any expertise in identifying defamatory material. This is clear in the ongoing hiring process for permanent corporate officer. It's easy to apply the label of defamation to material which offers legitimate criticism, and it is not the place of the board to suppress criticism by the landowners of the services for which they pay.

CHAIR: What do you propose? What are you—

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So I’m proposing consideration of this policy not be undertaken until the board obtains legal advice about how to distinguish between content which offers legitimate criticism and content which is defamatory, and that a rubric for making such a distinction be included in the policy.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Well, if you look at the policy, I'm suggesting that we just go to summaries rather than including full correspondence and that would eliminate the risk of defamation. [multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: But a landowner has a right to request that their correspondence be included in the minutes, and no one here has any expertise whatsoever at identifying, distinguishing between defamatory—

TRUSTEE MOHER: I beg to differ.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: —and critical material.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: I mean, why would we, why would we publish someone's correspondence just because there's a request—

TRUSTEE MERCIER: If someone wants to say—

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Everybody wants their correspondence published. I understand that, but there's a liability we're taking on by doing so.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Only if it’s defamatory. And you don't know how to distinguish defamatory material from non-defamatory material. And I don't know, and none of these people knows either.

[multiple voices, Trustee Moher interjects, unclear]

TRUSTEE MOELLER: There’s lots of places—

TRUSTEE MERCIER: [to trustee Moher] Are you a lawyer?

TRUSTEE MOHER: I worked in law for [twelve?] years.

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MOELLER: I’m talking here, I get five minutes, okay?

CHAIR: [holds out arms to motion Trustees to calm down]

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Okay, so there's lots of places for people in the public to go and criticize the fire department, there’s social media, there's a newspaper, there's lots of places. Our agenda is the wrong venue for that. It's fine for people to address the board, and I encourage that, but for us to publish it all, we're taking on liability. Okay? We can summarize it and people can see if they’ve written us. Are they looking for the board to respond? Maybe. Or are they looking to publish something? If they're looking to publish something, our agenda is not the right place for that. There's social media and there's a newspaper.

 

CHAIR: We're not newspaper, we're not newspaper.

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: [raises hand – ignored]

(APPROX 3:38:35)

CHAIR:  You can't, we cannot use what we have to insult, degrade, hassle, harass, defame people that work for us. They are entitled to a safe workspace. It's as simple as that. I've already talked to lawyers about this, but don't believe me on it. Okay? I know there are people who think, on this island, that you can set up a website and say anything you want, and it's not, not defamatory. And, and, and free speech doesn't have, have anything in it about, about defamatory speech or hate speech, or otherwise. I disagree. And so does the Criminal Code of Canada disagree on that. We are not in the business of of of pushing people's agendas on our website. If you want to insult our staff, we should not allow that.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: What if you want to criticize?

CHAIR: Like I said to somebody the other day, just take the offending thing out. And I got the same questions, and here we go.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: What if someone wants to write to us and say, “I think the Fire Chief is doing a crappy job”?

CORPORATE OFFICER: That goes to me.

TRUSTEE MOHER/ CORPORATE OFFICER/TRUSTEE MERCIER [multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: And it is not defamatory.

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MOHER: I can tell you that it’s not. But if they accuse them of something, “I think that the fire chief did blah blah blah blah blah which caused me to lose my blah blah blah blah blah,” that is defamatory.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: If they say “I think”…

TRUSTEE MOHER: I'm just, I’m, but you just told me I could not possibly understand the difference.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Right, we disagree, and none of us is right.

CORPORATE OFFICER: Can I make a motion—

TRUSTEE MERCIER: No, you can't. You're staff. You can’t make motions.

CORPORATE OFFICER: A suggestion. That you ask me to get a quote from the lawyers, because it's obvious we need one, and we shouldn't be paying 775 dollars an hour for the one we have now, to have a lawyer on staff to ask these types of questions, because right now we do not have a lawyer.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: That's what my motion proposes, and I'll read it again,

THAT this policy not be considered until the board obtains legal advice about how to distinguish between content which offers legitimate criticism and content which is defamatory—

CORPORATE OFFICER And I would say, to be on the safe side, We don't post correspondence.

TRUSTEE MERCIER:

—AND that a rubric for making such a distinction be included in the policy.

So that we have a clear guideline, vetted by a lawyer, so that we can properly distinguish between content which is potentially defamatory, and content which is merely critical. Because we also take on liability if we accuse someone of making defamatory statements when they have made critical statements and then deny them their right to participate in a public discussion of the body that their taxes pay for, because we have made a more or less arbitrary decision, without guidance, without instruction.

TRUSTEE MOHER: Yeah, I agree.

AUDIENCE: [clapping]

CHAIR: The only problem with it is, if I may speak, I’ll just make it right quick. The only problem with that is that we would have to take each and every—

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Respectfully, no—

[multiple voices]

CHAIR: Let me finish, Wayne, let me speak, for Christ sakes. Every single letter would have to go before a lawyer.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Respectfully, that's not what I'm proposing.

CHAIR: Respectfully, how else is it going to work?

TRUSTEE MERCIER: “That this policy not be considered until the board obtains legal advice about how to distinguish,” so we get instruction about how to make that distinction, and that, that being made by a rubric. Like a decision tree, if rubric is an unfamiliar term, so that we, the corporate officer, or the committee, because all of the correspondence goes to the communications committee, that there can be a decision made based on something other than our feelings about whether or not we think a statement is mean, so that we have a legal outline to make that distinction before we go about just, taking actions that stifle criticism, that restrict people's ability to address the public body for which they pay, that prevents us from hearing, clearly, from the landowners who pay for the organization. That's my motion.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: So, I want to make a distinction between addressing the board and addressing the public. I’m not saying we're not going to, this policy does not restrict people from addressing the board. In fact, all of the correspondence is still going to come to us, regardless of whether they contain defamation or not. The trustees are going to get them all. What I'm saying is we're not going to publish all, we'll publish summaries of them. And so it doesn't matter if they contain defamation or not.

 

TRUSTEE MERCIER: But it does matter, because we are restricting the public from engaging in a public conversation that may be critical of this organization. If no one can criticize this organization publicly, through the mechanism of democratic discourse, then how is anyone to know if there is a movement in the community. If people can't stand up to their elected officials and say, I think you are doing a crappy job in this particular way, then, and have that reported to the community, then no one has any means to know that that critical discussion has taken place.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Well, I'm a member of about five Gabriola bulletin boards on Facebook—

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Not so much since I stopped posting. It's really, really like taken a downturn.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: [unclear]

CHAIR: [interrupting] May I say something? May I say something? The distinction is between the intake of whatever, even hate speech I suppose we’re going to read hate speech. We're not going to rebroadcast it as far as I'm concerned.

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: On what basis are you going to distinguish hate speech from not hate speech?

CHAIR: I forgot to say something here. Just let me finish. What you're talking about is, apparently anybody can say anything about a Trustee or a chair or whatever.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: That’s not what I’m saying.

CHAIR: What’s that?

TRUSTEE MERCIER: That's explicitly not what I'm saying. I'm saying we should not—

CHAIR:  So you think it’s all right for us to reprint diatribes against our, um…

TRUSTEE MOHER: Employees.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: If they are not defamatory, yes. If I go to City Hall in Vancouver, or write a letter to Vancouver city council as a landowner in Vancouver, and say your police chief is a fascist dickhead—that's legitimate speech.

[multiple voices]

CHAIR: They're not going to rebroadcast it. They’re not going to rebroadcast it and you know that.

TRUSTEE MOHER: They won’t publish that.

CHAIR: It just died.

[multiple raised voices]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: I mean, [unclear]  you can look at video recordings of council saying like—this is public discourse.

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MOHER: Through the Chair.

[TRUSTEE BUSSLER raises hand – ignored]

TRUSTEE MOELLER: [unclear]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: and I made a motion that pre-empts [unclear].

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MOHER: Through the Chair. Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: Yes. I’ve just—

TRUSTEE MOHER: I’m just reading here from the Canadian government and their legal department of justice. Their definition, and this may help you decide, that a defamatory libel “is a matter published without lawful justification or excuse that is likely to injure the reputation of any person by exposing him to contempt or ridicule, or that is designed to insult the person of or concerning whom it is published.” So it can be written, expressed directly or by insinuation or irony. So the—

TRUSTEE MERCIER: And what are the legal justifications for those types of speech? If, the first thing you said was “without legal justification”. What are the legal, what are the legal [unclear]?

TRUSTEE MOHER: That means that you, there is no reason for you to do it.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: What are the reasons that are permitted under law?

TRUSTEE MOHER: There are none.

 

TRUSTEE MERCIER: There certainly are. Truth is an absolute de—

TRUSTEE MOHER:  What truth? What truth? Nobody has the right to cause undue harm—

TRUSTEE MERCIER: If it’s all true, it’s not undue harm.

TRUSTEE MOHER: [unclear]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: If I speak a true thing that causes someone else distress, that is not defamation.

TRUSTEE MOHER: The truth, the truth to you.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: The fact remains that I have a motion proposed—

TRUSTEE MOHER: We have a legal obligation to protect the [unclear]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: And I’m saying that we should receive proper guidance about how to do that. The motion that I've made, I don't think it's received a second I’m not sure?

[side-conversation between Corporate Officer and Trustee Moher while Trustee Mercier is speaking]

TRUSTEE BUSSLER/TRUSTEE CHERNEYNKO [both raise hands – TRUSTEE BUSSLER seconds]

[side-conversation continues]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: I’ve received a second. So the motion on the floor then, is

THAT the communications policy (I have it here as this policy, so I'll change it to “that the communications policy)” not be considered until the board obtains legal advice about how to distinguish between content which offers legitimate criticism and content which is defamatory, and that a rubric for making such a decision be included in the policy.

So the policy, which works to prevent us from republishing defamatory material, from its beginning, contains guidance on how we distinguish policy which can't, material which cannot be published, and material which can. Because right now, there is a wide range of feelings about what constitutes legitimate public criticism of the staff. And some people feel that any legitimate, that any criticism of the staff is illegitimate and hurtful, and some people feel that strong public criticism on staff the improvement district is permissible so long as it does not stray into defamation.

(APPROX 3:40:23)

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: And I think we're saying the same thing here, quite honestly, because I don't think any of us here want to defame the staff or say anything harassing—we’re [unclear] trying to stop it, that’s all.

[multiple speakers]

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: —we’re [unclear] trying to stop it, that’s all.

TRUSTEE MOHER: We shouldn’t be training each other—

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Defamation is just one of the issues. I don't think that our agenda is the right venue for people to publish things. It’s our agenda. There's lots of other venues that are meant for publishing things, and our agenda is not it.

So I think what Mr. Mercier is proposing is to continue publishing full correspondence in the agenda, and he wants to have a rubric for how do you decide whether something's defamation or not? I'm saying we shouldn't be publishing correspondence in the agenda.

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MOELLER: I mean, there's plenty of other venues, so the proposal, you’ve got one that supercedes it, so we know which way the vote is going to go, so let's just get ahead of it.

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: So ahead of this meeting I took a look at the Nanaimo City Council approach to this, and what they do is they actually— I think we're focused on, like, some very negative correspondence right now, but there's more positive correspondence that comes in as well, that they incorporate into their agenda. So for example, we recently purchased a new vehicle, new command vehicle, and I saw correspondence come in regarding opinions on EV versus ICE vehicles, and that, that type of correspondence in Nanaimo would show up on the agenda because it's a consideration. So you have a taxpayer that has offered their opinion. And I mean, it may influence, it may not, but it's, it's an item that you can action. So I think there is value in incorporating those types of things into the agenda.

CORPORATE OFFICER: That's only on agenda items.

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: Yeah, yeah.

CORPORATE OFFICER: So it’s not on [unclear] the other topics. [multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: We publish our agenda, and the cut off for the receipt of correspondence, on the same day. So no one has the opportunity to issue correspondence on an agenda item, because we have a rule that correspondence has to be in seven days before the meeting, and we publish the agenda seven days before the meeting. So there's no there's no possibility— It's just the same as the video recording policy—

CHAIR: Can I ask this? I would ask you to point out any government agency that reprints this sort of thing.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Nanaimo.

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: Nanaimo.

CHAIR: I’m telling you that they have a filter on anything like that.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: I’m proposing a filter.

[laughter]

CHAIR: Fine, but here's the, here's the deal. I've already spoken to two different lawyers about this, including our counsel.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Have you solicited opinions which we could consider as a board or are you just telling stories here?

CHAIR: Roll that by slower.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: I mean, you spoke to some, you've spoken to some lawyers. Do you have a written opinion?

CHAIR: Yeah, that's what we would have to do.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Yes, and I’m saying—

CHAIR: Look.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: —we should get something in writing from them, rather than just a report from you.

CHAIR: Then, then we will. It's kind of like your report. We have to trust what you said. You don't have to trust what I’ve said.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: The motion on the floor, which has been moved and seconded, is

THAT the policy not be considered until the board obtains legal advice about how to distinguish between content which offers legitimate criticism and content which is defamatory. And that a rubric for making such a distinction be included in the policy.

That's on the floor.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: That’s literally just what you asked for.

CHAIR: What's that?

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: It's literally just what you asked for.

CHAIR: Well it is to a certain extent, because, here's the, here's the deal. We have just paid a buttload of money to a lawyer. Okay. We're going to have to do it again. We're going to have to get get legal counsel. And my, what I would like to see is somebody in Nanaimo.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Might I suggest that we use the lawyers we've used previously in Nanaimo to deal with the SOS contract. We have an existing relationship with Nanaimo lawyers.

CHAIR: Who is it?

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Give me a sec...

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Before we [unclear], why don’t we vote on the motion.

TRUSTEE MOHER: [unclear]

CHAIR: Well, the deal is it's gonna cost you money. So are you guys all good with this—? [unclear]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Ryan Berger from the law firm, Lawson Lundell, they drew up the rental contract for the SOS contract, and we consulted with them briefly on the service contract. They provided a draft, which we adopted without [unclear] consideration.

So, yeah, that's the lawyer we should reach out to, we worked with them before, as recently as, I contacted them in July—

TRUSTEE MOHER: Mm-mm!

TRUSTEE MERCIER: —to hear about services they provided to us.

CHAIR: But you know that, you know, because you have a lawyer, I got a lawyer, everyone’s got a lawyer, that there are lawyers that are good for contractual agreements and real estate and all kinds of things. I think we need somebody a little more, a little more up the food chain. I would suggest that we get hold of who I was talking to last time. Cheryl Rea with Stikeman. [ED: Stikeman Elliott]

TRUSTEE MOELLER: If this draft policy passes, then we don't need that lawyer, because we won't be publishing the full correspondence anymore. There won't be a risk of defamation.

TRUSTEE MOHER: Exactly.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: There would be a risk. There would absolutely be a risk, not a risk, but anyone who's, if we don't publish correspondence, a landowner whose correspondence was not published would absolutely have the right to approach the office of the ombudsperson, and I can tell you from my past interactions with the ombudsperson, which is as Chair Johnson pointed out, you're welcome to believe me or not, is an issue that they would take up.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: There's no requirement to publish full correspondence.

CHAIR: Then I suggest we go to the Ombudsperson and have this settled.

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Most government bodies do not do it.

TRUSTEE MOHER: That’s true.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Most government bodies do not do it.

TRUSTEE MOHER: Absolutely.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: It is not a requirement to publish.

CHAIR: I don’t know any that do.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: I found one other water improvement district in the interior.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Is it Twin Lakes? You know why it's that way? The ombudsperson. The ombudsperson will absolutely require us to publish correspondence.

CHAIR: Well, let's see if that's true.

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MOELLER: [unclear] in the province, that’s the only one that’s ever had this [unclear]—

TRUSTEE MERCIER: No, Deep Bay also.

CHAIR: Let's see if that's true. You're saying that true. Let's see if it's true. Let's, I'll get a hold of the Ombudsman person and—

TRUSTEE MERCIER: And I mean, we voted down this exact same proposal in—

CHAIR: You say that's true, I have to see it for myself, because what my understanding is, that we are under the threat of legal action if we keep on thinking that we are going to publish a, defamatory things against our, our—

TRUSTEE MERCIER: I don't think we've published anything defamatory. You think that we may have. I'm suggesting that we consult the lawyers so that we can tell the difference.

CHAIR: Well, I'll tell you what they're going to tell you. They're going to tell you the same things that that I was told. Err on that side of caution, because the insurance company will go freaky if they have to handle another one of these things.

CHAIR: [addressing audience member] Sir.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. As someone who has written a letter recently, I would, and I'm only speaking for myself, I would absolutely have an issue if the board took it upon themselves to have AI or someone, condense my letter into some kind of summary and publish that for the public to see... Not okay with that either.

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Why not, though?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Cause it’s not what I wrote.

CHAIR: But at the bank, but at the bank that you work at, do they allow that?

[multiple voices]

CHAIR: Shut the fuck up.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: There is a motion on the floor.

CORPORATE OFFICER: Okay, so vote on the motion.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Erik! I’m going to object—

CHAIR: I am the Chair.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Point of order. The chair has just cursed at me, and I object very strongly to that. The chair has just told me to “shut the fuck up”. That's improper, and that is both rude and indecorous. I'm not going to ask you to make a motion on it, but it's on this recording, and everybody here is a witness to you attempting, forcefully, to stifle the right of a trustee to speak in Open Meeting. That is objectionable in the extreme.

CHAIR: On behalf of the position that I hold, I sincerely apologize.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: I accept your apology.

CHAIR: Thank you.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Can we vote? Do we need to vote on voting? We need to call the question and then, like, there's a motion on the floor.

TRUSTEE MOELLER. So we’re going to vote on his motion to delay this policy.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: My objection to the consideration of [unclear].

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Yeah, so all in favor of delaying the approval of this policy.

TRUSTEES BUSSLER, CHORNEYKO, MERCIER: [raised hands]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: The motion is

THAT the policy not be considered until the board obtains legal advice about how to distinguish between content which offers legitimate criticism and content which is defamatory, and that a rubric for making such a distinction be included in the policy.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: [to chair] [unclear] call for all opposed, Erik.

CORPORATE OFFICER: Call for all opposed.

[?]: All opposed.

CHAIR: What’s that?

TRUSTEE MOELLER: It’s a call for all opposed to that motion.

CHAIR: All opposed to that motion.

TRUSTEES MOHER, MOELLER, AND JOHNSON [raised hands]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So the motion is defeated.

(APPROX 3:50:02)

CHAIR: Can I just say something before you go any further—

TRUSTEE MOHER: The motion’s defeated, we need to move on.

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So it’s a tie. In the instance of a tie, the motion is defeated. Let the minutes reflect this, so we had Moher, Johnson, Moeller,  against, and Mercier, Chorneyko, Bussler in favour.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: So now we’re back to the original motion, which was the approval of this policy.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: I propose an amendment.

[muttering, laughter]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Yeah, I think it's a whole policy that affects our entire interaction with the public, and I think it should be carefully considered.

[multiple voices]

So the amendment that I propose is

THAT section five, responses to correspondence, be struck as conflicting with the correspondence policy passed at the November general meeting.

The correspondence policy from November covers all of that stuff, and it's, it doesn't make sense to have like, two different standards competing against one another. Can we vote on that?

TRUSTEE MOELLER: I’ll second that. Removing section five?

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Yes. Should we do that by general consent or shall we vote? Chair?

CHAIR: We all in? Discussion?

TRUSTEES MOHER, JOHNSON, BUSSLER, CHORNEYKO, MERCIER, MOELLER [raised hands]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Now we can vote on the policy as amended.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Call for a vote.

CHAIR: I call for a vote.

TRUSTEE MOHER: In favour? of the amended motion?

TRUSTEES MOHER, JOHNSON, MOELLER [raised hands]

TRUSTEE MOELLER: You have to call for opposed.

CORPORATE OFFICER: You have to call for opposed.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Call for opposed.

TRUSTEE MOHER: You have to call for opposed.

CHAIR: What’s that?

CORPORATE OFFICER: Call for opposed.

CHAIR: I have to do what?

CORPORATE OFFICER: Call for opposed.

CHAIR: Call for opposed.

TRUSTEES BUSSLER, CHORNEYKO, MERCIER [raised hands]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: I would like the minutes to reflect the voting.

TRUSTEE MOHER: We can redo this in January.

 

CHAIR: In a case of a tie it dies. Can I, I’d like to say something further, and I apologize to this audience and to the viewers at home for having spoken like a construction worker there for a minute. I put up with an awful lot of screaming and yelling here, not so much at this meeting, but other meetings we have been at, and I, you will see that I'm carrying a DB [ED: decibel] meter on me, and we've had stuff go as high as 140 DBs within the legal limit in a workplace is 94 DBs. Okay, this is the kind of stuff we put up with. So I don't expect you to forgive me. But in context, as they say, yeah, I’ve just about had it. I'm here, but I've heard, I've heard the most outrageous nonsense, particularly in in camera meetings when I was not the chair.

CORPORATE OFFICER: Okay that’s done.

TRUSTEE MOHER: [unclear]

CHAIR: I rest my case.

OFFICER: Next item.

CHAIR: Next item. Do we want to take a break soon?

[multiple voices]

 

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The next post in this series is part five.