The last two meetings of the CBRM council were highly controversial. This included councillors describing to Information Morning the pressure tactics they experienced. Mayor Clarke apparently arranged for several affluent CBRM business executives to lobby them in private meetings - just before the vote.

One of the videos was briefly listed on the CBRM meeting page, and then removed. Those videos are now available on youTube and can be played below (scroll down).

All that aside for the moment, here is one key thing you need to know:

Eight councillors voted for the extension without seeing the agreement.

If that concerns you (as it certainly should), I invite you to get up to speed on what happened. I recommend starting with this CB Post article by Erika Shea of New Dawn. She breaks down the importance of what occurred, and celebrates the courage of the four councillors who did the right thing.

Council Meeting on Thursday, December 15th

In the initial meeting, the mayor bumped the vote on the HPDP/SHIP agreement extension up in the agenda. It initiated a debate that demonstrated how valuable the newest members of council will be (Earlene MacMullin, Amanda McDougall, Kendra Coombes), as well as the consistent advocate for transparency: Ray Paruch. The new council block proposed an extension since they had been given information last minute (without the actual contract). Strong debate followed. However, the session ended abruptly as newly elected Councillor Gillespie collapsed due to what turned out to be a minor medical incident.

Council Meeting on Monday, December 19th

The morning started out with councillors called into a private meeting. Albert Barbusci of HPDP/SHIP was permitted to speak to council, though he did not appear during the public council session to answer questions on the record. Some of the new councillors were also singled out, and had prominent local business persons (with unknown affiliation to the project) speak to them. MLA Geoff MacLellan appeared to lobby council despite declaring his intention otherwise, and both Chief Paul and Chief Denny of Membertou and Eskasoni were permitted to speak in support of the project. The council debate began with the change block of councillors pushing for a responsible deferral. The deferral vote was lost with 5 in favor, including Darren Bruckschwaiger who agreed they did not have sufficient information. However, despite agreeing to lacking information, he defected and joined the rest of council in passing the extension anyway. Deputy Mayor Eldon MacDonald previously (2015) refused to vote for the Archibald's Wharf deal due to getting an agreement late. However, this time he saw fit to extend an agreement for 5 years without having seen the agreement at all, and did a quick guesstimate on how much he supposed HPDP/SHIP must have invested. Four councillors cast a responsible vote against the extension, only due to lacking of sufficient information and time to make an informed decision.

NOTE:  The views expressed above are my own and do not represent lokol (goCapeBreton.com). Read more