ARICHAT: Council is working to make virtual meeting attendance an option.
During the regular monthly meeting on March 21, Richmond Municipal Council gave notice that it intends to adopt a virtual meeting policy.
After years spent fighting for more accessibility, District 2 Councillor Michael Diggdon said it isn’t fair that council has a policy that makes it hard for committees to meet virtually.
“The issue I have is that it requires you to be visual; you can’t just phone in. Now on the accessibility committee that I’m on, there’s actually two or three people that don’t have internet availability,” he told council. “We’re taking away the accessibility of an accessibility committee. We have the same thing on the recreation committee where people don’t have internet support and they can’t Zoom, therefore they’re committed to the phone only, and this policy doesn’t permit that.”
Although she agrees with Diggdon, Richmond Warden Amanda Mombourquette said the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing and the Federation of Nova Scotia Municipalities were clear.
“The reality is that the Municipal Government Act already does not permit it. This policy, it must follow the Municipal Government Act, you can’t contradict it. We’re already in non-compliance on a couple of our committees, and I think we need to work through that to determine how we can support people in making sure that they can be seen and heard,” she told council. “Municipal affairs has restated that the requirement is for committee members be able to see and hear each other. They suggested some alternatives that committee members could potentially come to the municipal office to access equipment here to be able to do that, or to gather together in some other way. I think some of that, is maybe feasible for some people, but for many people it’s not going to be.”
Without the policy, Mombourquette said no meeting would have the authority to be held virtually, but she added that more work needs to be done to ensure universal accessibility.