OPINION: Maybe it’s time Chilliwack shifts to 8 city councillors

When it comes to politicians, is more better?

OK, OK, get your jokes out of the way, but I’m serious. Specifically, is it time for burgeoning Chilliwack to grow city council from six councillors to eight?

According to a strict interpretation of the community charter, we should have done this 20 years ago.

Section 118 of the charter states: “(1) Unless otherwise provided by letters patent or by a bylaw under this section, the council size for municipalities must be as follows: (a) for a city or district having a population of more than 50,000, the council is to consist of a mayor and eight councillors…”

Chilliwack’s population is closer to 90,000 than 50,000 so what’s up?

Well in that section 118 the important line “Unless otherwise provided … by a bylaw.”

In fact, there used to be eight “aldermen” in Chilliwack. Bylaw No. 404 stated that the letters patent from Sept. 21 1979 disolved the City of Chilliwack and the Township of Chilliwack into the District of Chilliwack, and that letters patent called for mayor and eight aldermen, it was deemed “desirable to reduce to six,” and so it was done.

Much later, the City of Chilliwack procedural bylaw No. 2984, section 27 sets out the number of councillors at six.

“At this point, council has not indicated to staff that they would like to increase their numbers,” director of communications Jamie Leggatt told me. “Should council feel like the workload is too much for the six of them, then it is certainly something they can consider.”

Former city council candidate and local resident Lisa Morry thinks it’s time to move to eight.

“In Chilliwack, we’ve gotten used to our governance culture with a mish-mash of ad hoc elected and unelected representatives and special interests appointed to speak for the values of a narrow selection of non-diversified, non-inclusive viewpoints,” Morry wrote in a letter to the editor, the full version of which is online here.

“Our city fathers (and I mean that in the paternalistic, condescending definition of the term) tell us that they’ve taken our interests into account and they have enough councillors to do the job. They don’t have my interests at heart and maybe not yours either. We can change that by the choices we make in the civic election on Oct. 15.

“Having eight city councillors, instead of six should have been one of the choices offered to us this election, but it is not, and, according to the community charter, it can’t be until the next election cycle in four years. We’ve missed this opportunity.”

She argues that there are many reasons to increase council representation. Additional council members would have time to pursue passion projects such as economic development; food security; arts and culture; equity, diversity, inclusion, Indigenization, decolonization; and more.

“Perhaps most important is the diversity two more council representatives would bring to consider the perspectives of Indigenous people, people of colour, people with disabilities, neurodiverse people, youth, older residents, LGBTQ2S+ people, and others with differences.”

Chilliwack is the largest community in the Lower Mainland with six city councillors.

Maple Ridge is just a hair smaller than Chilliwack with six. New Westminster and the City of Langley are also smaller and have six.

Kamloops and Victoria are cities just larger than Chilliwack with eight council members. Others with eight include: Kelowna, Coquitlam, Township of Langley, Abbotsford, Richmond, Burnaby, and Surrey. Vancouver has 10.

It would certainly be more of an expense to have eight, not least of which would be two more taxpayer-funded councillor salaries of about $44,000 each.

So the question remains, is it time to go to eight? Morry challenges council and mayoral candidates to respond to the question: “Do you support increasing Chilliwack’s city council from six to eight councillors and why or why not?”

If we change do decide to make a change, now it won’t be until 2026.

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