I met with the Hon. Doug Horner, MLA on Friday Oct. 16th regarding the issue of recording City Council meetings, which in turn is really a Provincial issue since the Alberta Municipal Government Act does not give much guidance to city councils on what constitutes an open meeting and they are free to set their own rules as they see fit.

More on our conversation but first I must publicly thank Mr. Horner for his time and efforts. It was a pleasure meeting you. Mr. Horner is a most personable and welcoming fellow. He is, I am sure extremely busy with lots of important issues but he gave me his undivided attention to my concerns all the same.

I explained my concern that the Spruce Grove City Council passed a bylaw prohibiting the recording of the open council meetings. I also explained that I was fully aware that the Alberta Municipal Government Act gives them the authority to do so. My concern is that the Alberta Municipal Government Act allows for some Albertans to have certain rights and others not. “Edmontonians” have the right to record city council meetings but “Spruce Grovers” do not. This does not seem fair to this local-yokel.

We agreed that the Spruce Grove’s City Council’s decision to prohibit the recording of the meetings was most likely a big mistake politically speaking. There is an election coming within about a year now.

Our discussion digressed into some other non related issues regarding education and such. What I found interesting during our ramblings, was that it became apparent that on a Provincial level politicians also have a certain apprehension, if that’s the right word, towards traditional media. It seems that on both the municipal and provincial levels politicians have a mistrust of the media. You can’t blame them. The traditional media is so pressed to sell news that news is now entertainment. But that’s a different story.

Our meeting ended with Mr. Horner appreciating my concerns and that he would contact our Mayor Houston and also the Minister of Municipal Affairs to see what might be done.

I will be very interested in the outcome.