How does a city council or town council meet in the time of COVID-19? The way most meetings are taking place - through technology.
Most large meetings in both Manitoba and Saskatchewan are being either restricted or banned outright, so municipal councils in Flin Flon and Creighton have relied on video chats and conference calls to host meetings that would have been in person.
The City of Flin Flon has moved city council meetings away from city hall, choosing instead to host virtual meetings through the program Zoom. After holding a meeting with only chief administrative officer Glenna Daschuk and media members at City Hall March 17, the April 7 meeting of council was held with each member in a different location, working off a computer, phone, tablet or other device.
All members of Flin Flon council, barring one, are in Flin Flon. Councillor Karen MacKinnon, who was travelling through her native Cape Breton Island when the outbreak began, has stayed with family members on the island since. Other members of council have checked in from their kitchens and living rooms - notably including Mayor Cal Huntley, who has joined meetings from a leather easy chair at his home.
“Karen is down East and the rest of us are all in our homes,” Huntley said.
“A lot of our meetings, not just the council meetings, have been taking place through this venue in our lives as well, certainly for me. I like to be in front of people. I do find it strange, but we’re getting more comfortable with the technology and we’re not struggling so much to get everybody on.”
MacKinnon has been able to participate long distance in both local and regional meetings, including those through her role on the Association of Manitoba Municipalities (AMM).
“AMM had a special board meeting via Zoom, they started doing it. I had a five hour meeting last week with another board I sit on, but that was just a teleconference. I like Zoom a lot better,” she said.
“I work at home - this is how I conduct my daily business all the time. It’s nothing new for me,” added councillor Colleen McKee.
MacKinnon added that the shift toward remote meetings and use of technology may continue.
“In some of the meetings I’ve attended, someone said this might be the new norm, that people realize they don’t need as big a footprint in buildings, that a lot more people can work at home, for meetings. This could change the way a lot of things happen in the future.”
Huntley added the use of remote meetings will likely only be a temporary move for municipalities, including Flin Flon council.
Creighton town council has changed its plans for meetings as well, choosing to meet over a conference call during their March 25 meeting. The next scheduled council meeting, planned for April 8, was cancelled.
Mayor Bruce Fidler has occasionally joined council meetings through a speakerphone call when out of town on business, but having the entirety of council conduct a meeting remotely was a first for Creighton’s town leadership.
Opinions were mixed on the new approach, but members agreed that the new system would be necessary.
“My personal opinion is that I don’t care for it, but for safety’s sake, if we have to do it, we’ll suffer with it,” said Fidler.
“It works fine, I feel it’s so much better to have person-to-person meetings, but at this time we can’t do it.”
“I think it worked great,” said councillor Neal Andrusiak.
Not every elected body has been hosting their meetings through technology. Some bodies, including the Flin Flon School Division (FFSD) board of trustees, have cancelled meetings outright. The board’s choice regarding meetings comes at a time when in-school classes for students have been suspended for the foreseeable future, possibly the rest of the school year.
