Mayor Bishop certainly has an interesting take on what happened during the meeting with the minister.
During the meeting, Councillor Prince departed from the coordinated approach Council had established for the meeting. In my view, his intervention caused significant disruption to the discussion and placed the Barons delegation out of step with the approach that had been established for the joint meeting.
This was particularly concerning to me because Council had formally identified the priorities Barons intended to advance, and our time with the Minister was limited
What he leaves out what was stated in the original email:
Each municipality will have roughly 20 minutes to discuss the topics of their choosing and bring up any concerns or questions to the minister. 1
I expressed my intent to speak on grant funding issues 2 and made sure to BCC Nobleford’s Mayor Joan Boeder, as she sent the original email. In the roughly 20 days leading up to the meeting I did not hear any concerns expressed from other councils in regards to speaking about grant funding audits.
Prior to the meeting I explicitly asked Mayor Bishop if he was prohibiting me from speaking to said issues 3 and received no response.
I was the last person to speak, after every council presented and the Minister explicitly asked if there were any more questions or concerns. Even then I waited to make absolutely sure I was the last person to speak as to not interrupt anyone else. The entire exchange between myself and the Minister lasted approximately 3 minutes.
This was particularly concerning to me because Council had formally identified the priorities Barons intended to advance, and our time with the Minister was limited
I will also note the meeting in which we formally identified our priorities was more so to ensure I would not be speaking to the minister regarding what I believe to be serious grant irregularities.
Motion made by Councillor Prince to amend the motion to include grant auditing.
1 for, 2 against.
Councillor Prince for,
Deputy Mayor Rempel and Mayor Bishop against.
Motion failed
