Anti-Rezoning Lawsuit Repeats Tired Trope That Public Hearings are Representative and Democratic

Public hearings — and the folks that can attend them — are not representative of the needs and wishes of current and future Calgarians.

What do you do when you don’t get your way but you’re convinced you should have? You go to court. A group of cantankerous Calgarians have done just that: taken the City to court over its approval of Rezoning for Housing, alleging among other things, bias in the public hearing process.

Bias, apparently, that stems from who shows up to public hearings. Take this quote from a recent Calgary Herald opinion piece on the subject:

Was the process, including the public hearing, the biggest in Calgary’s history, fair? Remember a solid majority at the hearing opposed blanket rezoning.

It’s absolutely true: The majority of the people who showed up, sat through hours of listening to others speak, and gave their opinion at the marathon public hearing spoke in opposition to Rezoning for Housing. By our count, of the 700+ people who made their voices heard (less than 0.05% of the population we might add), about two-thirds were against the proposal.

Is this direct democracy in action? Can we draw any meaningful conclusions about what Calgarians writ-large think about zoning? 

Absolutely not. All we have is 700+ opinions (of varying degrees of quality and repetition).

Public hearings have a representation problem: a bias towards folks with more time and resources, folks who want to oppose something rather than those who expect our governments to do the right thing without them having to show up and convince them.

But don’t just take our word for it. Utaye Lee, creater of the wonderful About Here YouTube channel explains it better than we can.

Have a look.

We live, believe it or not, in a representative democracy. We ask every eligible Calgarian to pick people to represent the best interests of the city and Calgarians.