Innocent motion causes dangerous stir

Story by Michelle Baril.

Fury flickered in the eyes of City Councillor Sarah Campbell after a public insult was directed toward her Monday night by fellow Councillor Daryl Vaillancourt.

Campbell had voiced her opinion against a motion that was brought forward by Councillor Mike Anthony and Vaillancourt said, “You should not be sitting here if you cannot take it.”

Anthony’s motion was to ask the province to reconsider the application for festival funding. The province set aside $10-million towards festival funding in communities throughout the province. Four hundred applications were submitted for review and a mere 90 were granted the funding. Municipalities such as Sudbury received $37,000 for a comedy festival and $38,000 for their annual summer festival and Thunder Bay received $75 000 for an Aboriginal event as well as $74 000 for an ice hockey championship tournament.

Anthony’s ultimate goal of this motion is to ask the province to grant smaller sums of money such as five or ten thousand dollars and spread the money to more communities especially around the North Bay area.

“We’re not complaining to the province as one of my colleagues says, we’re simply trying to offer an alternative,” Anthony said. “Five or ten thousand dollars would go a long way.”

Campbell explained that her concern is that the motion is too much like a complaint, and is afraid that it won’t even be looked at by the province and it could jeopardize the effectiveness of other, possibly more serious, motions presented in the future.

“There are times we should address our issues on a one on one basis,” Campbell said referring to local MPP Monique Smith.

Councillors Campbell, Chris Mayne, were the only two not to support the motion. Deputy Mayor Peter Chirico was absent.

“There are more ways to discuss in a constructive and positive fashion. In the end I supported Councillor Campbell’s direction,” Mayne said.

“A couple of years ago council had a reputation of not always dealing positively with issues. This evening’s motion wasn’t negative it had positive aspects, but there is more room to work positively and constructively with the heritage festival,” Mayne added.

Vaillancourt added that the motions were the way that the councillors connect with the citizens and that voicing their concerns was their job; if one is not fit to do so, they may not deserve a seat at council. The comment infuriated Campbell and she called a point of order demanding a private apology from Vaillancourt, adding that they all (councillors) were elected.

“He was very rude. To me personally he said I should not be sitting here if I cannot take it. I will hold my breath for his apology,” Campbell said.

“We are all elected – we do not insult another councillor,” she added.