Most people know the basics of what it is to be a councillor. You see us at events and in council chambers representing the community and making decisions that we think are best for the long-term health and sustainability of our community.
At a cursory level we are responsible for the directives that chart that course through policies, bylaws and land use decisions informed through debate, dialogue, research, reading, conversations with constituents, and advice from staff and other mentors, peers and advisors.
But there is an aspect to being an elected official that is little known to the general public.
As I write this column, I'm sitting in a hotel room in Harrison Hot Springs just before the beginning of the Lower Mainland Local Government Association (LMLGA) Annual Conference and AGM. It is sunny and inviting outside.
Now before you jump to any conclusions I will likely not see the sunshine until the conference is over Friday because we have a packed agenda. However I'm late writing this column for the paper so for the time being, pre conference, I'm relegated to periodically glancing outside, experiencing the spectacular scenery it only from a distance.
The LMLGA is one of five area associations of the Union of BC Municipalities. It encompasses 33 local governments from Pemberton to Hope and represents more than 50 per cent of the province's population. I sit on the executive of this organization as an appointed representative of the SLRD.
The primary function of the LMLGA is to bring issues forward to UBCM and other levels of government so that legislation and laws can be influenced or initiated.
For example, this year we are considering resolutions that would make helmets mandatory for all small wheeled vehicles [inline skates, skateboards etc.], encourage the province to properly fund poverty reduction strategies, increase recycling deposits to include milk containers, and resolve that the provincial government dedicate resources to control the proliferation of invasive species.
This is just a sampling of the resolutions being considered at this year's conference. These resolutions are put forward by various municipalities, debated by the LMLGA membership and voted on. Some of these issues are contentious and provoke heated debate. Others are roundly supported or rejected.
If endorsed by the membership present, the resolution is forwarded to the UBCM for similar consideration and if endorsed there they are presented to other levels of government as policy "requests" or directives.
The provincial and federal governments don't always listen to LMLGA, UBCM or FCM (Federation of Canadian Municipalities) but often enough to make it worthwhile.
I know. It's not glamorous stuff; not too many people get really jazzed by policy development and legislation. But it is an important function of how societies progress, for good and bad, and is an integral responsibility of elected officials. And as usual, decisions are made by the people who show up.
French social commentator and political thinker Montesquieu once said: "The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy."
Robert Maynard Hutchins (American educational philosopher and Dean of Yale Law School) went further when he said: "The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment".
