By Gagandeep Ghuman
Published: Aug. 28, 2018
District of Squamish is worried false and dishonest information may be submitted to the district during a public hearing process.
“There are currently no tools within the Community Charter or Local Government Act legislation to allow local governments to validate electronic submissions to public hearings, if and when concern or suspicion arises due to the quality of submissions,” Christina Moore.
So, it’s asking the province to amend the Local Government Act in a way that would give it the ability to ‘verify the legitimacy of a submission where there the submissions may be false and dishonest and made to undermine the integrity of the public hearing process.’
District made this submission as part of its UBCM (Union of BC Municipalities) resolution.
Until now, however, there has been no proven cases that involve false of dishonest submissions, according to communications manager Christina Moore.
But even if there were, the current legislation wouldn’t allow the district to discount or dismiss those submissions, she added.
Moore said while technology has created new and simplified opportunities for citizens to participate in the public process, it has also created challenges as there are several ways to generate false electronic submissions.
“There are currently no tools within the Community Charter or Local Government Act legislation to allow local governments to validate electronic submissions to public hearings, if and when concern or suspicion arises due to the quality of submissions,” she said.
This gap that has ‘broad-reaching’ implication for the legitimacy of the public process, she added.
Moore said the district believes that provincial legislation needs to catch up in order to ensure that local governments have access to tools by which to validate citizen submissions.
The Local Government Act legislates that the Public Hearing process and provides for submissions to be made by anyone in the public having an interest in the matter or the property.
The Resolutions Committee of UBCM, meanwhile, noted that the UBCM membership has not previously considered a resolution seeking an amendment to the Local Government Act regarding false and dishonest information being presented to councillors.
The resolutions will be discussed at the 2018 UBCM Convention, which will be held September 10 to 14 in Whistler.
