SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
City council has directed administration to look into different options for restoring funding for summer camps for disabled children, but the public won't get to know the full context of legal advice given to councillors on the issue.
Denise McKee, executive director of the NWT Disabilities Council, speaks to the city's municipal services committee in March about a $9,000 cut to the organization's grant. - Shane Magee/NNSL photo |
The funding first came up after councillors approved an $18,000 core grant to the NWT Disabilities Council, a third lower than what was given in the past and 45 per cent of the $40,000 requested. Legal advice was sought to clarify the city's responsibilities around funding summer camps for children with disabilities.
"The information council was referring to was not provided in a public forum and this information is not available to the public or the media from administration," city spokesperson Nalini Naidoo wrote Monday in an e-mail response to Yellowknifer's request for the information. She did not explain what specifically would prevent total or partial release of the document.
Coun. Shauna Morgan raised the funding issue Monday and confirmed that the legal opinion did not suggest the city would be required to support the summer camps. How that determination was made or what laws and bylaws were considered in it are not publicly known.
The executive director of the Disabilities Council, Denise McKee, previously decried the funding cut and suggested the city was placing itself in legal jeopardy. With the cut meaning fewer children would be able to attend the camp, McKee's presentation to council resulted in the request for legal advice.
When the topic came before council again on Monday, McKee said she applied to other funding sources because people were seeking support and referenced a recent NWT Human Rights Arbitration Panel finding related to this issue.
The city last month lost a human rights case brought forward by a former employee who resigned in 2012. The decision by the panel stated city managers refused to adequately accommodate the request of the mother of a boy on the autism spectrum to have a summer off to take care of her child. The woman was unable to find summer care for her child, such as a day camp, because of his special needs.
"I have parents in tears on the phone on a daily basis saying that they're going to lose their job, including five years back when the person you're having to deal with came," McKee said about the human rights case. "The answer we had was to create a program so no person ever had to be turned away again."
Despite the legal advice presented by administration, several councillors supported restoring the cut funding.
"I appreciate that the city isn't legally required to provide grant money to any community group and that the city doesn't technically turn anyone away," Morgan said.
"Beyond our very bare legal responsibilities, this is something we should do ... it's the right thing to do."
Councillors requested administration return at a later meeting with suggestions of how to provide the additional $9,000 this year and examine ways to provide stable funding - such as through a direct service agreement like what's done with SideDoor Youth Ministries - to include in the 2017 budget.
"I do agree that these kids need to be afforded the same opportunities as any other kid - that is important," Coun. Niels Konge said.
With the decision to cut funding already made, Coun. Linda Bussey said reopening the grant funding conversation would allow other groups that had requested higher payments to also ask for more.
"I just think we need to be consistent," Bussey said. "I'm not saying we can't address it next year."
Deputy mayor Adrian Bell suggested a potential cut - council's lunch budget. Asked if there was such a budget and how much it holds, Naidoo wrote that the reporter could examine the city's 2016 plans to spend $1.2 million for council and the mayor. That section of the budget only contains a broad overview of spending on things like travel and public relations ($245,000), wages and benefits ($374,000), grants ($542,000) and public information ($65,000).
Yellowknifer's denied request for the legal opinion comes on the heels of other rejections for information such as the number of times an overdose-reversing drug has been used by its ambulance service and information about a business licence holder.
It's up to city staff to decide what the public can know and what it can't in the files held by city hall and funded through taxpayer dollars, as it is not subject to access to information legislation. Most other Canadian municipalities are covered by such laws, which would allow anyone to submit a request for a fee and access records held by the city that don't violate personal privacy.
NWT information and privacy commissioner Elaine Keenan Bengts has been strident in calling for municipalities to come under the law as it is redrafted by the GNWT, calling access a basic part of democracy.
