North Cowichan’s New Civic Engagement: Speed Dating for Questions

Hold onto your stopwatches, North Cowichan residents, because the latest council bylaw has turned public participation into an Olympic event.

With just 30 seconds on the clock to ask a question during council meetings, it’s a mad dash to the finish line. That’s right, if you blink, you might miss the entire democratic process.

Imagine it: You’ve spent hours stewing over a pressing community issue, carefully crafting your question to get straight to the point, only to find out you’ve got half a minute to blurt it out before being shooed away from the podium. It’s civic engagement meets game show, and we’re all contestants now. Maybe they’ll start handing out door prizes for participation—assuming you make it to the mic in time.

And let’s not forget the council’s nod to “respectful behaviour,” conveniently mentioned in the same breath as this new rule. It’s all part of the “Respectful Spaces” initiative, which, as it turns out, might be less about fostering inclusive dialogue and more about ensuring you don’t linger too long. The clock’s ticking, and we wouldn’t want to waste any of those precious 15 minutes allocated to public questioning—after all, when was the last time we even needed more than three questions?

But wait, there’s more! This fast-paced format raises some intriguing questions about inclusivity. How does this sit with the Accessibility Committee? Do our more vulnerable community members, who might need a little extra time to articulate their concerns, get a few bonus seconds? Or is everyone equal under the tyranny of the stopwatch? After all, nothing says “diversity and inclusion” like making everyone speak at auctioneer speed.

One wonders who came up with this brilliant idea. Was it the same folks who’ve been championing “civility” in public spaces? Perhaps they thought the best way to keep things civil was to keep them brief. Too brief to cause a ruckus, too brief to spark a meaningful debate, but just long enough to give the illusion of public involvement.

In this new era of rapid-fire governance, we might as well start practicing our elevator pitches. Need to bring up that new development project that’s got the whole neighbourhood in an uproar? Better condense it down to a few sound bites. Want to discuss how council decisions are affecting local businesses? Hope you can get it all out before the buzzer.

So, next time you head to a council meeting, be sure to stretch your vocal cords, take a deep breath, and maybe even do a few tongue twisters on the way in. You’ve got 30 seconds to make an impact—if you’re lucky. After that, it’s back to your seat, where you can watch the clock run out on what could have been a fruitful discussion.

Who knows? Maybe next, they’ll reduce council debates to a “yes or no” button on their desks. That would surely keep things moving at breakneck speed, just the way they like it.