The Two Sides Of The Plante Issue: POTTER
uOttawa Professor Evan Potter addresses the limits of freedom of speech concerning Rideau-Vanier Councillor Stephanie Plante and city integrity commissioner Karen Shepherd:
I’m of two minds on l’affaire Plante. On one hand, politicians should be allowed irony, sarcasm, and memes— Pompeii’s graffiti served much the same function. Councillors, in my view, have a public duty to confront misinformation (the sincere but wrong) and disinformation (the knowingly false). Yet Shepherd insists Plante crossed a line. And she has a point: nothing a sitting councilor says online is ever “private.” Once elected, every post, like every word in a community centre basement, carries the weight of office.
To read the full essay on the Plante issue, go to Potter’s blog by clicking here.
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Thanks Evan. Well analyzed. I hope Council agrees with the Integrity Commissioner. If not that role might as well be tossed. And it sends a signal that such communications are OK — and they clearly are not for our elected officials.
The key to this issue is what standard council holds itself to. It is not about ‘freedom of speech’. According to the Integrity Commissioner, Plante’s style/tone of communication was below the standard that council set for itself.
One way to improve the quality of what passes for debate on matters municipal is to lead by example. A slap on the wrist to Plante, in the form of a public censure for conduct unbecoming and a relatively minor ($1,300-$1,400 fine, before tax, about $1,000 after tax by my calculation) affirms what council stated before when it set its own standards. It says that councillors are expected, dare I say required, to stay above the muck that is social media. That councillors, as leaders of this city, are expected to exercise better judgement.
Bulldog readers are free to comment on any article that appears in this forum. Commenters are free to say what they wish although not all comments are posted because they must pass through the editor to ensure they don’t contain offensive language, offensive content, etc. In addition to an integrity commission maybe the city needs to appoint an editor to review all posts made by any councilor before it appears on any form of electronic media, i.e. email, facebook, etc. Stephanie Plante stepped into the fire and is surprised she got burned?