The City of North Vancouver council unanimously agreed to muzzle the public’s voice in a brazen, ill-considered and inherently anti-democratic decision. At a council meeting on April 22, the Mayor and council voted to ban the public from speaking about specific development applications after legal advice from staff.
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The decision comes after several residents raised concerns in the council chamber about a controversial 21-storey development proposal by Three Shores on East 14th Street. In the council chambers, neighbours have voiced their discomfort about density and traffic, with residents putting an uncomfortable spotlight on developer donations to political campaigns. That ended on April 22, when the council decided to use a legal interpretation of a provincial law to shoo away citizens.
Heidi Granger, a City of North Vancouver solicitor, told the council that the province has prohibited public hearings and that allowing the public to speak could open the city to legal risk.
“A public input period may then be characterized by somebody who wants to challenge the lawful work of the city on the basis that the city did allow the prohibited public hearing so it opens the city up to some legal risk. So our recommendation, which may be cautious, but it is a recommendation based on advice is not to receive verbal submissions at public input period on proposed developments that are coming before Council,” she said.
Contact us if you have any documents that reveal ethical violations or abuse of power at the City Hall.
Granger said as the city tried to align its processes with the new legislation, it also considered whether to allow people to speak during a public input period on rezoning bylaw when the public hearing is prohibited.
“After much consideration, we concluded that there is too much risk that this could be characterized as an unlawful public hearing. So we now recommend receiving written submissions,” she said. “Members of the public could generally speak at the public input period about development in the city but not on a specific application and bylaw set to come to the council where a public hearing is prohibited by the province.”
Conveniently conflating the prohibition of public hearings with their ban on public speaking, councillors who spoke on the issue were quick to deflect blame to the province as if it was the province—not the councillors—who were voting to ban the public from speaking about rezoning applications.
Coun. Holly Back said it should be clear that this is a provincial government decision. “Having said that, when people have issues and emails to pass, as a council, we won’t answer them, but we will send them off to our corporate officer. But in doing so, they could also send their issues to the MLA, considering it’s a provincial government,” she said.
She suggested that people email their local MLAs, adding that the council will get copies of all the comments made during information sessions.
While expressing concerns about the potential displacement of residents, Coun. Shervin Sharriari said he agreed with his fellow council members that “at every stage of the process, we need to make this very clear that this was a part of a new change the legislative change by the province of BC local government and I think it’s it’s not good for democracy.”
Mayor Linda Buchanan also blamed the provincial government, forgetting that there is no provincial mandate—yet—that bans public speaking on rezoning applications.
“What I also want to make very clear is that this is, as my colleagues have said, legislative change that has been directed to local government. And this is the largest overreach of provincial government in history with multiple legislative changes in very short order. And I’m not sure there is an understanding of how much chaos that has actually been injected into local government has been stated. There’s no precedent case law; we have to change financial frameworks. We have to change our whole system within local government in very short order, and our staff are tap dancing as fast as they can to abide, and the unintended consequences are real.”
Contact us if you have any documents that reveal ethical violations or abuse of power at the City Hall.
More corruption from left wing liberals…..big surprise
You say Liberals? Don’t you mean NDP?? This is NDP legislation at the Provincial level and NDP at the CNV level as well. This type of thinking and legislation is right out of the communist totalitarian playbook. It’s time voters in our elections at all levels figure out what is really going here. Those that are currently elected at all levels want absolute control. We MUST get rid of ALL of them!! Be very careful how you vote, we are heading in a very dangerous direction in this Country.
Typical… this guy makes a comment about a political party that has nothing to do with this. It is people like this who vote based on lib/con left/right year after year instead of listening to what each side has to offer that are the problem
Wow. This is an absolute disgrace. Just remember folks, you voted them in. Oh sorry, of course you developers know that.
Great article shining a light of the absurdity of city officials playing games with the OCP and wanting to hide behind new legislation. The province did not force Mayor and Council to have a closed session and agree to sell an absurd amount of density to a site that is coincidentally owned by a major campaign donor to the Mayor. Oh and they just happened to brag on their website of leverage and connections at the city. Now they want to use the shield of the new legislation to block the public from exposing that the OCP is worthless since friends of Mayor and Council can radically change the density of a proposed site without any amendment to the OCP.
Lets remember that this overreach by those at the NVC are hiding behind a disgusting legislation from the NDP Provincially that goes much further than just this. Remember, that these new laws on zoning allow the absolute destruction of our neighbourhoods by allowing people to build 4 or 6 units on signal family home sites with no ability for the City to stop it. Overall the Press is once again silent on the truth of what is going on at the local level, saying almost nothing about a 10.5% tax increase in 24 in NVC and others. At the Provincial level this new legislation as well as other complete leftist, Marxist policies are showing it’s face as Ebby reveals his agenda. (keep in mind the reversed decision that would allowed indigenous natives to have control over all lands in BC) – As said in other comment, we are in very dangerous waters if we continue to have NDP at the Provincial level. Lib/NDP Fed and if we allow this current Council/Mayor to be voted in again!!
Thank for being a real journalist! I’ll look forward to more from you as you’ve gone to a paid service here. We have so few people and Corp Media departments that will tell the truth about what is going on in Government. Most are just mouth-piece extensions of Gov and/or propaganda arms. Please keep up with this type of honest reporting, it’s not found at CBC, CTV or Global etc. (I could list most print media as well)
A simple referendum on any such proposal would be fair and legal. Just a Yes or No vote without incurring any legal consequences.
Or I guess we have a referendum on Mayor and Council next municipal election on October 17 2026
so which of the following does Bulldozer Buchannan want to be called:
dictator
tyrant
despot
oppressor
totalitarian
dominator (she sure would look cute in her black leather dont you think)
enforcer
overlord
Wonder what all those thousands of small business owners and low income renters would say about her as they were all forced out of their homes and businesses (and maybe even homelessness) because of this ruthless and inhuman bunch at city hall
Bike Lane Buchanan’s Dictatorship.