By Brock Weir
Ottawa’s advisory committees are currently frozen from replacing members whose terms would otherwise have expired.
But some committee members worry that the freeze might leave them – and their work – out in the cold.
For Marg Coll, chair of the seniors’ advisory committee, the reason why recruitment was frozen is unclear.
This lack of clarity, she says, makes her wonder about the future of advisory committees.
“We don’t know whether it is cost, or whether the committees are going to be disbanded,” she says.
Coll says she believes, however, that the disbandment of advisory committees is very unlikely as the city consulted her committee while drafting the upcoming budget and appreciated their suggestions.
The advisory committees and boards, made up of community volunteers, provide advice to city council and contribute to the development of policies, programs and other initiatives.
The city has announced that effective this Jan. 1, the terms of all advisory committee members would be extended until the end of the year.
Before this, terms of committee members typically lasted two years.
Now, members must stay until the end of 2007 regardless of when they joined and new members may not be appointed while the city evaluates provincial legislation, which intends to give municipalities the authority given to Toronto in the City of Toronto Act, 2006.
Elaine Fleury, manager for the city’s committee and council services, says city council recommended delaying recruitment by one year “because they wanted to review the bill’s impact.”
The legislation is supposed to give more say to municipalities to better address local issues.
While Fleury says they were instructed by council to hold off recruitment until the end of 2007, future additions of committee members will be contingent on the city’s report on the bill which is slated for later this year.
Regardless, Coll says the freeze is hurting the work of the seniors’ advisory committee now. Advisory committees are required to have anywhere between 10 and 15 members, and the seniors’ committee is down to the minimum.
The committee is divided into three subcommittees that look at transportation, housing, and healthy lifestyles.
With a lack of members, these subcommittees and the advisory committee as a whole are struggling to make ends meet, she says.
“We only have 10 members now and we really should have the compliment of 15 in order to have people active on these committees as well as being able to attend different events,” she says.
“We’re one of the smallest committees and the fact that we can’t even fill in gaps now for the people that have left makes us very vulnerable for being able to get anything done.”
Although Fleury says she has heard concerns similar to Coll’s, she says some committees experienced shortages even before the freeze.
“It’s not the first time. We have run short on members before, whether there were resignations or whatever, we’ve had committees run with fewer than full compliments before,” she says.
Rob Sproule, chair of the business advisory committee says his committee has 13 members and there hasn’t been a second membership recruitment since it was established in May 2005.
He says he doesn’t see the freeze as much of a concern for the business advisory committee,
“We don’t get 100 per cent attendance, but our members are conscientious, they’re hard-working, by and large their attendance records are good, and we’re not anticipating we’ll be in dire straits by the end of the fall,” he says.
With 13 members, the business committee is down one member since it was founded.
One of the committee’s two designated rural representatives was moved to the rural issues advisory committee when it was re-established.
But Sproule says that despite losing one designated member, they can still be a voice for rural business interests.
“We have at least three other people with a rural perspective and they keep us honest,” he says with a laugh.
Fleury says the rural issues advisory committee is the one committee exempt from the current recruitment freeze and the city is advertising for new members.
“Council granted an exemption on that one because it was on pilot last year so [membership] was sort of handpicked,” she says. “We’re running an actual recruitment this year because of that situation.”
Although the freeze is in place, Fleury says the advisory committees perform a valuable service for the community.
“[Advisory committees] give us a cross section of the public that has a background and certain amount of knowledge through the information they receive and the discussions that happen at committees,” she says.
“They perhaps have a better understanding of the issues, they’re there when we need to do a fast consultation, they do a lot of research, and they do bring ideas.”