Shocked in the Crowsnest Pass

Why am I shocked? Well after all this community went through with the promises of Billion dollar projects, and all the glitz and glamour that came with them.

Last night at the G+P meeting Councilor Mitchell brought forth the following Notice of Motion.


“Whereas the council of the Mun of Crowsnest Pass passed a policy motion CL.013 in the fall of 2010, regarding endorsement policy for member of the council.
And whereas this policy may affect the goodwill of the community towards new endeavours of commercial or industrial ventures and instill the feelings that the community wishes to discourage new development.
And whereas this type of policy is covered under the Mun. Government Act in sections 172 and 173 (pecuniary interests) as quoted when this policy was brought forward in 2010.
With the above in mind, I Larry Mitchell, councilor of the Mun. of Crowsnest Pass will move or cause to be moved a motion to rescind this policy CL.013 2010 at our regular council meeting on April 19,2011.”

This policy came about because the former Mayor of the Crowsnest Pass appeared in a promotional video for a developer that created a lot of noise in the area over the last five years.

Councilor Mitchell understands as full well as I do that sections 172 and 173 of the MGA refers to pecuniary interests, (which in lay mans terms means no member of council shall participate in any council duty that they may gain financially from personally). That’s why we had a councilor for eighteen months who left the chambers every time an issue with this company came up, because he did have a pecuniary interest. He collected a paycheck from this company.

When this policy came forth it was explained in great detail to Councilor Mitchell that there was a perception real or not that when a municipal politician appears in a developers promotional material, it lends credibility to that project.

Nobody wants to discourage new ventures and it may be appropriate at some point for the community and its leaders to assist in the promotion of new development, marketing plan, economical initiative etc.  

But prior to our Mayor appearing in this video was there a discussion in council? No

Was council as a whole given the opportunity to discuss if this was a good idea? No.

Now this is what the policy states “No member of council shall be permitted to endorse any project, appear in any promotional video, pamphlet, or publication of any type, or attend shareholders meetings acting as a member of Council without first presenting to Council the reasons for such involvement and receiving Council’s approval”

SHOCKING isn’t it? in simply terms it states that for a member of council to do this he/she would have to bring it to council first and receive approval. As a member of the council at that time I found out about this video months after it was released when a local real estate agent emailed it to me.

I would like to hear Councillor Mitchell or any other politician explain to the public how this policy, “discourages new development”