Consultation is a dirty word (Part 2)

By Susan Ong

Part Two of our three part series

If you missed part one, take a look here.

In the last post, we talked about how municipalities tend to default to the same mechanisms for public consultations, which results in the same people showing up again and again and again and again. We also identified some of the barriers that other community members may face in engaging with the consultation process. In this post, we talk about what happens when public servants do try and expand reach, and how this can perpetuate harm.

When bureaucrats try to go outside the bounds and engage communities (using language like “under-represented” “marginalized” “equity seeking” etc.) a few things usually occurs. First, they’ll connect through their colleagues who already have professional links to groups, like social services.

But they’ll often conduct the consultations in the same way, either under the guise of neutrality or without considering modifications. This is not to say that one should assume that the level of knowledge or intelligence of previously under-engaged communities is less! Rather, the starting assumption should not be that they have had the same level of interaction with a topic that say, the planning subcommittee of a community association, has had.

Here’s an example:  If we’re talking about a new housing development, many community associations have planning subcommittees that have people with specialised skills. Some are current or former architects, or even developers. They may talk about things like the height and density of the building, the character of the street. Often, they express concerns about traffic, or soft landscaping. Their interests are in relation to streetscape, property values and safety of kids. These are all important and valid concerns - but they’re only a subset of the broader community perspectives.

If we widen engagement and speak to people that we don’t hear from regularly, we may hear different concerns. Someone who lives up the street and walks everyday to get to the bus stop may be more concerned about the fact that this new building now creates a blind corner, and that when they finish a shift late at night, they’re going to feel unsafe walking home. Or maybe the parent who has to wrangle their baby and toddler to get two blocks up the street to the daycare and bus stop would really love a sidewalk on the side of the street that has the new development. These concerns are valid, tangible and have planning solutions! But if these concerns often never make it to the table, so how can they be addressed?

Even when new folks start to engage, if the consultations are run the same way, it can leave the newly consulted individuals feeling like the entire situation is transactional. If your consultations have always been held at 7pm on weeknights over zoom, and there is an expectation that this is how you’ll be conducting your consultation, turnout will be compromised. If people make the effort to participate because they were asked to by those they trust and have an existing relationships, this can lead to them feeling robbed. Here, we then start to hear complaints about being ‘over consulted’. This can leave the public servant or person running consultations confused. They start saying: “Well hang on, you were previously complaining that we never asked, and now you don’t want us to ask anymore?” For the newly ‘engaged’ community members they are left wondering:

• How much of what I’ve said to you is actually going to be taken into account?

• Do you really care about my opinion or are you just going to discard it?

• What practical outcome will happen as a result of my time and energy?

• Why am I bothering to engage in this one directional relationship?

This sentiment echoes 2017 ipsos polling, that indicates that after not hearing about a consultation, the next top 4 reasons for not participating in municipal consultation is that people felt a few strong voices always dominate the conversation (55%), that they didn’t think their contributions would have an effect (44%), they don’t like participating in group discussions (40%) and that they run at inconvenient times (39%).

What is more insidious is when the consultation is treated as perfunctory, a tick in the box or done disrespectfully. The quality of the feedback being received is arguably just as, if not more important, than the quantity, but too often, those with decision making power are very concerned with how many people were consulted. Focused, thoughtful discussion is not valued or is treated as “well that’s just the opinion of 10 <insert identity> people”. Yet, those same people have never had an issue with hearing from the same community groups over and over again. Funny how that happens, isn’t it?

This is where the harm starts. Here, we now have groups (both community associations and non formal groups!) who are tired, burnt out and constantly asked for their opinions. Sometimes they give those opinions and they’re taken into account, but oftentimes they aren’t. The consulted group feels robbed, but the (often burnt out) public servant or bureaucrat gets to tick a box and tell management and Council that the consultation was a success because they engaged lots of people. 

Here, we see harm and distrust begin to get sowed in because a group of people who are generally already vulnerable or marginalized have given up time and space to engage in a consultation process for what feels like no good reason. They may never hear from organizers again (until they need something, again), and have no idea if their opinion will make a difference. after all, it’s just the opinion of a small group of people.

At QuakeLab, we have a strong policy against trauma mining which puts marginalized people into a position to recount their experiences for the spectacle. In this same way, while the efforts to include the voices of marginalized groups in community consultation is very laudable, we hope you can now see that, the way it's currently being done isn't working for anyone!

Building relationships and community takes time, and cannot be done in a 2-hour community meeting in a fluorescent lit community centre at 7pm at night when the toddler is hungry. (sorry, but it’s true).

It’s not all doom and gloom, we’ve got a way forward coming up! In the final part of this series we’ll talk about the equity principles that should govern how we do community consultations. But if you can’t wait until then, feel free to get in touch with us about your consultation needs!