The following is an open letter to South Bruce Mayor Bob Buckle dated Nov. 26.
Dear Mayor Buckle,
We wrote to you concerning the comments you made about a canvasser from the We Deserve A Referendum Petition, a campaign initiated and managed by Protect Our Waterways, after the Nov. 9 council meeting. It has been two weeks, but unfortunately, we have not received a response so we are resending it today.
Upon hearing your statement that one of our canvassers had provided misleading information to a resident of our community, we immediately contacted the canvasser. While she misspoke to the resident, it was not her intention to mislead that person. In fact, the canvasser left the residence with the understanding that the resident and the canvasser would both look into the issue and then share what they learned.
As you know, the canvasser told the resident words to the effect that only a referendum held during a municipal election was binding and that a referendum held outside the traditional election period would not be binding. This was a misstatement of facts, but not of reality.
While it is true that if a referendum were held as a byelection process it could be considered binding – the likelihood of it being a binding vote is very low. That is because, as you are aware, the legal standard for a binding referendum is that at least 50 per cent of eligible voters must participate and a majority of those need to vote for a single referendum option. As municipal byelections have traditionally low voter turnout, the total vote count would likely not reach the legal standard to be binding.
Our canvasser did not correctly inform the resident of this important nuance in the process. We have corrected the canvasser and contacted all our canvassers to make sure that they too have a better understanding of the process. We are also contacting the resident to apologize.
Of equal concern is why you choose to insert your comment about the exchange between the resident and our canvasser during the delegation from GDH Consulting. The company was there to present the results of the Willingness Study the municipality had commissioned.
The issue with our canvasser was unrelated to the delegation or the GDH report. Rather than ask questions about the report on such important issues such as Theme 6 and the “Lack of trust with the NWMO, the municipal staff, council, and the CLC and concerns about bias of CLC, council and/or municipal staff towards supporting the project,” you choose to make the We Deserve A Referendum Petition the sole focus of your comments.
The consultant also identified that the community wanted to see a “values-based” approach to determining willingness including “trust and transparency.” I would add fairness to that list of values. It was indeed unfair of you and the council to make statements about our organization’s alleged use of misinformation when no one from our organization was there to defend ourselves.
Neither do you treat other organizations, especially the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), with similar callouts on misinformation. On March 23 of this year, NWMO CEO Laurie Swami stated in the Globe and Mail that, “The deep geological repository is safe and protects the environment.” At no time did you call out her or the NWMO for this misinformation. But you are aware that there is not a single DGR operating anywhere in the world and that therefore her statement is a goal, not a fact. Yet, she stated it as such.
It is unfair to call out one of our volunteer canvassers at a town council meeting and to do so without any investigation in the facts, nor allow our organization to be present and comment. It is even more unfair to hold a volunteer canvasser out on an example of misinformation when you and your fellow council members don’t hold the NWMO and others to the same standard.
Protect Our Waterways will be making a request for a delegation to the council in early January 2022. At that time, we will provide council with the details of our petition campaign and present a motion requesting a referendum. I hope we will be treated with more courtesy in person than we were in absentia.
The Directors of Protect Our Waterways – No Nuclear Waste
