The Role of Councillor
The Municipal Government Act outlines the powers and responsibilities of council members in Alberta. The most important power is in Section 182—every member gets one vote. In Medicine Hat, with nine council members, the influence of a single vote is limited. You need five votes to pass anything. But because power is spread equally, single councillors have just enough power to be disruptive. That’s why Alberta’s model of municipal governance requires high level teamwork skills from council members.
I spent four years on council from 2017-2021. It’s such a busy time, there’s no time to reflect on the experience. I’ve had time since then.
What’s your mandate?
Council members receive political power because they’ve gone to the trouble of putting their names forward and running in an election. Campaign platforms indicate how candidates are going to use their voting power. When we delegate political power to representatives we want some assurance about how they’ll use it. They don’t get a blank cheque. Understanding their mandate is more complicated than you think.
My platform in 2017 had 21 campaign pledges. I probably took over 100 significant votes during my term on council.
Did I have a mandate to vote on anything outside of my platform?
It’s unrealistic to indicate your position on every issue during a campaign. How can you communicate to the public how you intend to vote on issues not covered in your platform? Not every issue (and this is especially true of municipal issues) fits neatly into a conservative or liberal ideology. For example, if a new electric substation needs to be built in a neighbourhood—conservative or liberal principles aren’t going to be of much help.
Each member of council votes at one of these consoles. The name of the console always cracks me up. It sounds like a Schwarzenegger movie.
Are councillors allowed to compromise?
When I ran for councillor in 2017, I spent a lot of time thinking about my platform. I didn’t spend much time looking at the platforms of the other candidates. What if parts of your platform conflict with the campaign promises of other councillors?
Let’s say this fall, half the council is elected on promises of 0% tax increases and the other half promises to expand municipal services. Since politics is about compromise, the solution would be some middle ground. In this view, your platform is simply your starting negotiating position. I’ve never thought of platforms this way. Do councillors have a mandate to compromise? Or are they breaking their campaign promises if they compromise?
Principle vs Compromise
I made a promise to myself before I ran for council. I didn’t care if I lost every vote, I wanted to stay true to my principles. My personal measure of success was to vote my conscience. I intentionally self-funded my campaign. I worried fundraising would weaken my independence when those who donated came calling. I wanted to minimize any pressure on me.
This high minded, principled view didn’t prepare me for the reality of politics. What if I didn’t get exactly what I wanted for each issue? What if I wanted to limit the budget increase to 3%, but it came in at 4%? Was I compromising myself if I voted yes?
It’s easy to be a principled councillor. It’s easy to vote no on principle if you don’t get exactly what you want. Since you almost never get exactly what you want, it’s also a way of avoiding hard votes.
You only get so many of those before you isolate yourself from the team. Whether or not I struck the right balance while I was on council is a matter of opinion. These are hard judgment calls. I didn’t always get it right.
Notice of Motions
Notice of Motions are a necessary power for councillors, but should be used with restraint. Notice of Motions allow single councillors to elevate any issue to a council meeting agenda. Without this power, any council voting bloc, which sometimes form, could stop issues from reaching council.
Notice of Motions are a quick way to bring an issue to council. It’s quick because it shortcuts the committee process. The committee process is there for a reason. Issues get refined as committees made up of councillors, staff and the public work through an issue. By the time an issue reaches council the best version of each choice should be refined and ready for debate. Committee work sets the stage for productive, effective council decisions.
There’s no reason why any issue can’t come through the normal committee process. Even for unexpected, emergent issues, if the issue is supported by a majority of council the mayor could simply add it to the agenda. If a majority doesn’t support the inclusion of an issue, why should the judgment of one councillor take precedence?
Council time is a scarce resource. Every additional issue on a council meeting agenda dilutes council’s focus.
I submitted one Notice of Motion during our term. In hindsight it was a mistake to use this power. I was in a rush because I was trying to meet a deadline to submit a resolution to Alberta Municipalities for their annual municipal conference. But just because I’m in a rush, doesn’t mean council needs to rush too.
I was in a rush to do everything my first term. My colleagues told me things take time. That’s hard to hear for a new councillor, eager to make an immediate impact. Alberta’s municipal governance model prioritizes collective action, not speed.
My motion was defeated. Councillors can force a vote, but persuasion and consensus takes time.
Relationship with Administration
The relationship between council and administration is challenging. It’s hard because administration has a different perspective than council. I could understand other councillors, even if I didn’t agree with them, because we’re both political creatures. It was harder to understand administration. Council governs through policy, which is complicated. Day-to-day operations are even more complex with buses and garbage and sewer lines and ice rinks and electric generation and police and firefighters that need to perform everyday.
There are right ways and wrong ways of interacting with staff. Three examples from my experience—one right and two wrong things I did.
A right way: avoiding surprises
If I had questions I planned to ask during a council or committee meeting, I tried to share them with staff ahead of time, to give them time to prepare. Most council members extend this courtesy.
The goal of the discussion at council meetings is not to play gotcha with administration or other councillors. You want to make sure the information is available when you ask the question. That means giving people a heads up. You don’t have to tell anyone which way you might vote, but councillors have a part in ensuring a productive debate occurs. Presenting at council is stressful. This courtesy reduces stress.
2. A wrong way: critique policy, not individual decisions.
I walked into the council boardroom one day in 2019 and saw 20 new conference chairs. I was mad. We had been talking about cost cutting for months and 20 perfectly fine chairs (in my opinion) had been replaced. I shared my displeasure with staff—and they looked bewildered. I understand their expression now.
Council governs through policy. Staff make decisions based on policy. Focus on policy. It’s an indirect way of governing. You need to understand how individual decisions by staff connect to council’s policy. In this case, I should have looked at the asset management policy. Were assets renewed based on a specific period of time or by the condition of the asset? That’s the question to ask.
If you’re mad about something, you need to creatively figure out the right question for your role as councillor. Staff are there to work with you to get to the right question.
There’s so much information coming at you it's hard to have perspective your first term. To save your energy for the big decisions you have to let go of smaller issues that might irritate you. Let’s say those conference chairs cost $10,000. Lots of money, but relative to a budget over $100 million? The public needs my focus on the big things. My first term I wanted to fight everything.
3. A wrong way: criticize in private, praise in public.
There were at least two occasions where I failed to live up to this standard. I criticized staff in public and in pretty terrible ways. I immediately regretted it and apologized. Part of the reason I didn’t run for reelection is because I recognized, through these mistakes, that I wasn’t dealing with stress productively.
I got a taste of my own medicine. I worked for Alberta Municipalities for the past couple years in Edmonton. Alberta Municipalities is a member organization for most of the urban municipalities in the province. Committees of elected officials from across the province get together to work on issues of common concern. As a policy analyst, my job was to support them. I was now on the other side of the table. After one meeting, a committee member didn’t like something I had done and let me know. They had the courtesy to have this discussion in private and face-to-face. Even then, I didn’t like being criticized in ways I felt were unproductive. I was hurt.
The life of a councillor is full of hard conversations. You have to find ways of having hard conversations constructively.
Managing adrenaline
The energy at a council meeting can be intense. You can feel the energy from an angry crowd. Having a debate between members of council can get heated. There’s no real way to prepare for this, but it’s good to know ahead of time.
To make a coherent argument at a council meeting requires a cool head, but the adrenaline gets going and you can get lost in it.
One way to improve your public speaking is to watch yourself. We had had a council meeting where there was a heated debate. The next day I watched the video on Youtube. It was awful. The night before I was pleased with myself. I thought I had done a good job communicating my points. But watching it, once the adrenaline had worn off—the whole thing was cringey. The finer points of my argument was lost to the overall tone of my response. Whatever the issue was, it didn’t require this level of angst.
There are ways to have productive political debates, without the cringe. I don’t always meet this standard, but productively contributing to the discussion is an important role for councillors.
Leading from your position
Councillors are elected on individual platforms, then must immediately transition to working as a team. I didn’t appreciate the difficulty of that transition until I sat down in one of the nine council chairs.
My colleagues used to tell me to pick my battles. But my first time around—how did I know what battles to pick? Knowing which battles to pick requires perspective and experience, neither of which I had. I tried to fight everything.
In hindsight I was too combative, too in a rush, and too ambitious in my first term on city council. I didn’t spend enough time building relationships with my colleagues.
Leadership and teamwork go both ways. The buck may stop with the mayor, but an effective council depends on all councillors productively contributing.
When I was elected councillor, I was the only member without previous council experience. I benefited from my colleagues’ experience, especially Phil Turnbull. Phil’s ability to build consensus, from the position of councillor, was critical to the success our team had. Phil is a connector. He called everyone—all the time. (I used to love his 10 pm phone calls. People don’t realize how funny Phil is.) He knew what our positions were on each issue and worked to bridge differences. Council work is relational. You need people like Phil to diligently work to reach consensus. There are ways to lead from any position.
Councillors in Medicine Hat represent the interests of the city as a whole. Not the neighborhood you live in or small business owners or older adults or people in need. You have to look at the big picture.
There is a bigger picture you must consider as a single councillor. The nuance of city council politics is your life as a councillor, but of little interest to the public. They care less about the details, than whether progress is being made.
Don’t miss the forest for the trees.
