To the editor:
When deciding on how to handle the decision on how to make city council more open you need to ask yourself who you work for and what right you have to keep information from them.
While any discussion about items that may be before the courts should certainly be discussed in camera, there is no other business that truly qualifies.
Contracts should only remain confidential during the bidding process but once that is completed the voters are entitled to know where the money goes and any business that can't live with that can look elsewhere.
As far as labour negotiations go it may be wise to formulate your position in private but once both parties have submitted their proposals then all should be public knowledge so that voters will know what is going on and can comment if they wish.
Open government is the key to the democratic process, it's not always pretty or convenient but it is necessary if democracy is what we truly believe in.
Too often meetings are held in private with so-called "stakeholders" and the voters in general are left out of the decision.
Do you really need to be told that the only stakeholders that matter are the voters and taxpayers, anyone else is solely there for their own self interest, however nice a package they may present it in.
John Brewer,
Thunder Bay
