How a groundless narrative cooked up by elected officials and the press of “boisterous” and “raucous” meetings, was used to justify major claw backs in open public input to Saanich Council.
This article reveals the results of an investigation that involved contacting the elected officials and the press, and asking them to verify claims made in articles and in public statements regarding conduct at council and town hall meetings.
None of the claims looked at for the article, were substantiated by the elected officials and members of the press that were contacted, yet the narrative was used to clamp down on open public input to council.
By Sasha Izard
Aug 24, 2025
On August 13, 2025 a Times Colonist article by Andrew Duffy announced:
“Saanich town hall to move to council chambers after boisterous last meeting“
“The District of Saanich is moving its next town hall meeting to council chambers to better “keep order” after its last meeting became boisterous.”
“Council directed staff to notify the district that the two-hour meeting will be held Sept. 9 at 6 p.m. at Saanich Municipal Hall.
“Being in the council chamber just ensures that we can keep order for the meeting. It still follows the orders of procedure like a regular council meeting would, even though it’s entirely dedicated to hearing from folks who show up to speak,” said Mayor Dean Murdock.
Following the last town hall meeting on May 6 at the Hellenic Community Centre, concerns were raised about creating a welcoming space for all participants.
According to a staff report, applause and interjections during the meeting created an environment where some individuals may have felt uncomfortable expressing differing views.”
—————————————————————————————————
Saanich subtly reduced the public addressing of council time at the unrecorded town hall in the council chambers to a meagre one hour from 6-7PM a time earlier than the usual council meeting starting times (7PM). The 6-7PM time slot is difficult for working people to attend. Don’t let the supposed two hour meeting time fool you. The second hour is for the elected officials to schmooze one on one with members of the public. With only one hour time slot, 3 times a year set aside for open topic public addressing of their councillors, this means that the public would have 3 hours in total annually and unrecorded, to address their councillors publicly on open topic issues.
The Mayor as justification for the move, implied a lack of order at the previous town hall held at the Hellenic Cultural Centre. However, the Mayor was not present at that town hall.
A staff report that described clapping at the May 6 town hall (only 1 staff member appears to have actually been present at it), was used as basis for not having such events at outside locations and reducing the public input time. This defeats the staff’s original reason for recommending having town halls held at outside locations, which senior staff and also elected officials used as justification to eliminate recorded monthly Open Forums that were previously held in the council chambers. The mayor himself is on record clapping at council meetings. There were in contrast, no staff interjections or reports complaining about that either before or after the move.
Mayor Murdock clapping at the June 9, 2025 Saanich Council meeting. The Mayor was not in attendance at the May 6 Saanich Town Hall Meeting held at the Hellenic Cultural Centre, after which staff wrote in a report that clapping took place at the event, followed by their recommendation that District Town Hall meetings be held only in the council chambers in the future.
LETTER: Saanich residents clap back over loss of town hall meetings – Peninsula News Review
Note: Although the above letter was printed by the Saanich News online; after 2 issues, they still have not printed it in the actual paper. Was there too much truth in it that dispels the phony narrative that they themselves, helped create?
—————————————————————————————————
Returning to the quotation from the TC article: “The District of Saanich is moving its next town hall meeting to council chambers to better “keep order” after its last meeting became boisterous.”
In an email on Aug 14, 2025 I asked Times Colonist writer Andrew Duffy about the claim in his article of a “boisterous” town hall meeting. I began by quoting a section of the article:
“According to a staff report, applause and interjections during the meeting created an environment where some individuals may have felt uncomfortable expressing differing views.”
Is it from that text that you concluded that the last meeting was “boisterous”?
—————————————————————————————————
Even though, the two of us had been sending emails back and forth before that day about the staff report mentioned in the article; when I asked that question, Duffy immediately fell silent.
After 2 days passed, I emailed him again:
Hi Andrew,
I noticed that you didn’t answer if it was from that text that you concluded that the meeting was “boisterous”?
Do you mind answering what you based that conclusion on?
Thank you again,
Sasha
—————————————————————————————————
Duffy replied this time:
You would have to ask the editor who changed my lede [sic]
I wrote something about maintaining order and it was changed at some point to use the word boisterous … I suspect the editor in question felt I had used the word order too often and wanted some variety … but that’s just a guess
—————————————————————————————————
Thanks Andrew,
That was actually what I suspected all along. I know the editorial style of the Times Colonist too well.
Cheers,
Sasha
—————————————————————————————————
I sent another email:
Just one more question:
“I wrote something about maintaining order”
Was there any disorder at that meeting that you are aware of?
Thank you again,
Sasha
—————————————————————————————————
After that question, the ‘professional journalist’, Duffy fell silent and stopped responding.
Journalism, or creative fiction?
Duffy was not present at the town hall meeting that he wrote about, and there was no recording made of it by the District, as the District did not want recordings of the Town Hall meetings to be made. However, someone outside the district did make a recording of the meeting, which has yet to be released.
The cost of recording a Town Hall plummets from previous estimation by Saanich’s Corporate Officer. Council rejects recording options anyway. – CRD Watch Homepage
—————————————————————————————————
So there we have it, the term “boisterous” in Duffy’s article to describe the Town Hall meeting was a literary invention of the Times Colonist editor.
How many more literary flourishes over the years have served to create images in the public mind of government/public events?
Are the so-called free press in a democratic society, accurately covering and transmitting to the general public what happens at public/government events, or are they inventing what happens at them?
As the Mary Poppins song goes, “a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.” This is exactly what the Times Colonist was doing. By inventing a “boisterous” meeting, as opposed to a normal town hall meeting which it was, the Times Colonist was providing justification for the District’s latest crackdown on open public addressing of council.
This is not the first time this has happened. It is part of a well established pattern in the media.
Words that have no basis in fact are frequently put into the writing of journalists and the titles of their articles by editors, when those words are not based on observed fact, nor empiric evidence. These are nothing other than literary inventions.
—————————————————————————————————
“Boisterous” was not the only unfounded term recently applied to a recent public meeting with the District.
A July 9, 2025 Times Colonist headline read: Quadra-McKenzie plan moves forward after raucous meeting – Victoria Times Colonist
Unlike “boisterous” in this instance, the Times Colonist didn’t dream up a term to describe a meeting – “raucous” – they simply copied the term from an article published the day earlier by CHEK News:
‘Threatening conduct’: Mayor, attendees call out raucous behaviour during Quadra McKenzie plan discussions
The July 8, 2025 article by CHEK News didn’t just coin public behaviour as raucous at the July 7 meeting regarding the Quadra McKenzie draft plan, it even accused threatening conduct.
The claim of threatening conduct appears to have come from the Mayor’s statement released the same day on the District’s website:
“Unfortunately, this is not the first time we have seen this kind of behaviour. The escalation in tone and aggressive or threatening conduct at council meetings is totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Further steps are being taken to ensure a safe and respectful environment for everyone who comes to speak to Council.”
—————————————————————————————————
To investigate the Mayor’s claim, I sent him the following email:
Hello Mayor Murdock,
I have 2 questions for you regarding the following article: ‘Threatening conduct’: Mayor, attendees call out raucous behaviour during Quadra McKenzie plan discussions
Did you observe any threatening conduct, or raucous behaviour in the Council Chamber on July 7, 2025?
Thank you,
Sasha Izard
—————————————————————————————————
The Mayor didn’t respond to his Constituent’s very valid question. This is certainly not the first time.
The Mayor was also interviewed on CFAX after the meeting. He was asked if he saw anything in the chamber that was of the sort of description he had applied to the July 7 meeting events. The Mayor on-air wouldn’t answer the question.
Why does the Mayor feel perfectly comfortable issuing bold statements from the District about what he is alleging of public conduct at meetings, but won’t answer if he himself observed anything of what is described in his statements?
—————————————————————————————————
I wondered if the CHEK journalist who reported on this meeting and whose article included the word “raucous” to describe the meeting was any more credible with these claims, than the unresponsive mayor.
I sent her an email:
Hello Laura,
My name is Sasha Izard. I am a Saanich resident.
I have a question if you don’t mind, regarding your article:
‘Threatening conduct’: Mayor, attendees call out raucous behaviour during Quadra McKenzie plan discussions
Did you observe any threatening conduct or raucous behaviour during the Quadra McKenzie Plan discussion meeting at the July 7 meeting at Saanich Council?
Thank you,
Sasha
—————————————————————————————————
Hi Sasha,
Thanks for reaching out. Unfortunately, I did not attend the meeting in person so my article was just written up based on the video recording of the meeting, and statements that were issued by the mayor afterwards.
Thanks,
Laura
—————————————————————————————————
Hi Laura,
Thank you for your response.
The claim about the threatening conduct. Was that based on what you saw on the video recording of the meeting, or from the statements that were issued by the mayor afterwards?
Thank you again,
Sasha
—————————————————————————————————
The journalist did not respond to the question. Once again bold claims are made by the media about government/public events, that the journalists whose names are attached to the article refuse to explain what specifically their claims were based on.
Journalists are supposed to ask the key questions to defend the public interest.
Yet again, we see the opposite, they make bold claims which are then used to hamper public input opportunities at council, and then when asked to verify what their claims are based on (e.g. they could have provided a time on the recorded video they claimed was their source of information), they simply refuse to respond.
Are these journalists in a democratic society defending the public interest, or are they making unfounded claims which are being used against it? The fact they won’t answer as to the direct source of their information, e.g. again they could provide the time point(s) in the recorded video of the proceedings that could verify their bold claims – speaks volumes. How difficult would it be, if it were true to simply say at this point in the video, the public were raucous?
The unfounded term “raucous” for the meeting gained a life all its own. Not only did the TC use the same term the following day, in an article about the meeting; a week after the meeting, a Commentary appeared in the Times Colonist with the title:
“Comment: Raucous Saanich council meeting not true gauge of opinion”
The TC generally make the titles that are applied to op. eds/letters to the editor, that are submitted to them.
The commentary had the subtitle:
“If I were to list all the things I’d rather do than endure the ordeal of public meetings I’d run out of paper”
The commentary was by Jack Sandor, the vice President of Homes For Living, a group that seeks in their Constitution to pressure councillors to be in accord with their development agenda.
2 Sentence Constitution of the Homes For Living Foundation removes any doubt that Homes For Living (HFL) is a purpose-built pressure group designed to influence municipal politicians. – CRD Watch Homepage
The online link to the article reads:
Public meetings not true gauge of opinion – Victoria Times Colonist
Sandor began: “The Quadra-McKenzie plan meeting at Saanich council on July 7 is a prime example of how our system of public input is fundamentally broken. It doesn’t adequately capture public opinion, leads to anger about feeling unheard, and frequently makes our cities worse.”
Sandor was the only member of the public on record to have supported the elimination of Saanich’s monthly Open Forum sessions at Committee of the Whole Meetings, even though he chimed in on the record weeks after Council had already made that decision to end it, in spite of overwhelming public opposition to its elimination. The justification the District used to eliminate Open Forums which were recorded open-topic public input opportunities, was that they would hold unrecorded town halls meetings instead.
It was Sandor that I was referring to as the member of Homes For Living, in this letter to the editor dated Nov 9, 2024:
LETTER: Saanich should rethink elimination of open forum – Saanich News
I also warned: “On Oct. 28, the majority of council voted to remove the statement of address requirement during public input, thus allowing non-residents (including lobbyists) to go undetected during input.”
I mentioned this because I foresaw the danger of outside interests showing up at council meetings, not having to identify if they are residents of Saanich or not. This danger includes groups showing up and using instigation tactics to undermine or even eliminate public input at council meetings.
Homes For Living which acted as a third party advertising sponsor during the last election (2022) backed Dean Murdock and the majority of those who were to be elected to council in the District that year.
Sandor himself donated to Dean Murdock’s election campaign $250, a fact that I had included in my letter to the Saanich News, a comment that was withheld by the Saanich News from the version it published.
Homes For Living, like other development-industry-oriented groups like the UDI, has opposed public input opportunities at local government meetings.
—————————————————————————————————
We’ve seen how the media generated terms like “boisterous” and “raucous” applying them to meetings where they were not present, and they were unable to show the evidence of their claims in recordings of the meetings. The journalists of those articles that initially used those terms, at least responded initially to my questions.
What about when a journalist covers such a meeting and repeats earlier media claims that they were “raucous” and then doesn’t respond at all when asked about their coverage, or if they even attended the meeting in question?
—————————————————————————————————
Journalist Olivier Laurin of the Saanich News wrote the following article: Safe space: Saanich council moves town hall to council chambers – Saanich News (Aug 14, 2025)
It was subtitled: “Concerns were raised after the May 6 town hall where applause and interjections punctuated the meeting”
The article, which reads like Yellow Journalism began:
“Raucous meetings, rooms exploding in applause and folks squawking their unsolicited opinion aloud are reasons cited by Saanich council to move the upcoming town hall meeting to the council chambers.”
Yellow journalism – Wikipedia
Does anyone remember the game of telephone? The media are repeating each other’s claims and then amplifying them over and over with each repetition, increasing the myth through repetition. “Raucous meetings”, and rooms “exploding in applause”.
This appears to be creative writing. This is not what was in the report from the staff. I’ve included that staff report that was attached to the agenda for the Town Hall item at the Saanich Council meeting on Aug 11, as an appendix.
Here is what the report read:
“Following the May 6 Town Hall, informal feedback highlighted concerns related to maintaining a welcoming space for all participants. Applause and interjections during that meeting created an environment where some individuals may have felt uncomfortable expressing differing views.”
This was immediately followed by the text “Hosting the Town Hall at Municipal Hall provides a setting that supports consistency, neutrality, and the same level of decorum expected at Council meetings.”
Quite vague isn’t it? This recommendation is based on “informal feedback”. Why informal feedback? Were staff and elected officials not present at these events? Why did they need “informal feedback” to come to their conclusions? Why did they not want the meetings actually recorded? Note the qualifier “may” being used, rather than a statement of fact as to whether or not people were uncomfortable at the May 6 Town Hall meeting. Hardly a justification for essentially eliminating town halls by reducing the public open-topic input to council 1 hour from 6-7PM 3 times a year inside the Council Chambers.
So, how did that vague section of the staff report morph into Saanich News journalist’s Olivier Laurin’s much flashier version?
“Raucous meetings, rooms exploding in applause and folks squawking their unsolicited opinion aloud are reasons cited by Saanich council to move the upcoming town hall meeting to the council chambers. “
That isn’t what was cited in the report. Were the councillors themselves feeding back what the media had already spun out of the mayor’s previous statements?
Don’t forget that the Mayor himself, such an excellent source of information was not actually present at the Town Hall. This shows the absurdity of depending on the Mayor as the spokesperson for the District even when he is not actually present at the town hall meeting described.
Taking another trip down memory lane. Does anyone remember the Peter Sellers comedy film The Mouse that Roared (1959)? The title is most appropriate here. There was a scene in the film, where some people observe some anachronistic men wearing medieval knight’s armour walking around in New York City.
The message about this passes from person to person, and telephone to telephone until the message that is received is that there is a giant invasion of flying saucers in progress. No doubt the inspiration for this was the famous Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio broadcast.
The War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama) – Wikipedia
“The episode was directed and narrated by Orson Welles as an adaptation of H. G. Wells‘s novel The War of the Worlds and is infamous for inciting a panic by convincing some members of the listening audience that a Martian invasion was actually taking place.”
In my view, nothing is different than the effect Welles achieved, than what Saanich, Homes For Living, and the media’s tango with the District has achieved in manufacturing an image of a “raucous” and “boisterous” public out of control, that need to have their public opportunities to their elected officials slashed as a result.
This is how a series of unfounded hype amplifies itself through repetition/modification, thus creating a phony crisis and accompanying hysteria/panic, that is used to pass policies that operate against the public interest and to justify them to the general public.
—————————————————————————————————
I sent the following email to journalist Olivier Laurin:
I have two questions, if you don’t mind regarding your article:
Safe space: Saanich council moves town hall to council chambers – Saanich News
1. Are you aware that the Mayor who is quoted extensively in the article, was not present at the May 6, 2025 Saanich Town Hall meeting?
2. Were you present at the May 6, 2025 Saanich Town Hall meeting held at the Hellenic Community Centre?
Thank you,
Sasha Izard
—————————————————————————————————
The Saanich News journalist Olivier Laurin author of the article, never responded.
—————————————————————————————————
Despite not accounting for his own words and creative writing in regard to the May 6 Town Hall , he did however, publish another article on Sept 22, 2025, where ever Shakespearean, he brought in a whole new adjective to describe the July 7, 2025 QMP meeting: “tempestuous”, in addition to including the same old debunked and unsubstantiated trope about it being “raucous” in the subtitle (likely an editorial addition).
Growing pains: Saanich residents weigh in on revised Quadra McKenzie Plan – Greater Victoria News
I mentioned that this is all part of a historical pattern, going back much earlier, as part of a continuous process over time for the reduction of public input at council meetings; as a development industry agenda is foisted on the locals, regardless if they want or need it, or if the costs involved in increasing infrastructure will simply make life so expensive that it squeezes out many of them in the process.
In May of 2023, the following letter chronicling this process was submitted to the Saanich News. It was not published:
On May 8, Saanich Council approved a motion put forth by Councillor Harper and seconded by Councillor Plant to refer public participation to the Finance and Governance Standing Committee for Review and for potential recommendations to change the bylaw.
The rationale Harper provided for putting the motion forward was vague to say the least. The closest to a justification seemed to be that it might potentially be out of date and need updating.
Plant’s reasoning also appeared vague, but less so. He made it clear that he thought that it was worth considering to get rid of Open Forum.
There has been a clear trend to limit public engagement by Saanich Council in the last few years. In 2020 and 2021, in the midst of overwhelming pandemic concern, the Council adopted a new “Council Procedure Bylaw, 2021, No. 9660” which severely limited public engagement.
In the past the public had the opportunity to speak on each item on the council agenda separately, but with the change in 2021 only 3 minutes is given at the beginning of council meetings to individuals to express their concerns on all the items on the council agenda. This change made the public engagement in the municipal agenda practically meaningless in comparison to what it was previously.
[Note: In the hindsight of later research, the above paragraph is not entirely accurate. The previous 2015 Saanich Council Procedure Bylaw, allowed 3 minutes only for the public to speak to all items on the agenda at regular council meetings, however, this did not apply to Special Council Meetings, of which there were many at which public hearings took place. The public could speak on multiple items at Special Council Meetings that were issues of a public hearing for more than 3 minutes per item. How this changed is that more and more public hearings were waived during the pandemic up to the present through the incorporation of new provincial and municipal policies, to the point where formerly commonplace public hearings, where multiple could take place in a single night, have been reduced to the point where now they have become an exceedingly rare occurrence.]
More recently, pre-zoning has creeped into the discourse around Saanich’s policy, which is something being pushed by the development lobby to limit public participation by denying the vast majority of public hearings on zoning.
Open forum consists of 15 minutes a month, whereby members of the public have 3 minutes each to address council on a broad range of subjects and offer suggestions. It is really the only public opportunity to do so.
Councillor Plant suggested that in all his years on council he’s never heard any worthwhile suggestions from the public, worth following up on at Open Forum.
To be quite frank, I find this to be offensive and that this attitude towards broad public input comes across as being haughty to the same public that elected this council.
Is Democracy worth 15 minutes of our time?
—————————————————————————————————
Over a year later, the District eliminated Open Forum, under the justification of Town Halls, only to hamstring those in less than a year.
Although the May 6, Town Hall received more coverage, a cramped Town Hall at the Cedar Hill golf club (which may not have passed the fire inspector’s approval) occurred on Oct 22, 2024. It seemed that the District did not expect many people to show up, having hardly informed them of it.
When the meeting took place, however, the room was packed surprising the elected officials, who it seems didn’t expect many people to show up. People were left standing out in the hall, the whole meeting. Despite that, it proceeded fine. This however, appears to have not been the recollection of only one councillor after, Councillor Brownoff who made comments in regard to it at the April 8, 2025 Special Committee of the Whole Meeting. Council was deliberating at that meeting in regard to potentially recording town halls, which they decided against.
The following day, on April 9, 2025 I sent the following email to Councillor Brownoff:
Hello Councillor Brownoff,
At the 1:40:30 time point in the meeting, you said “That first Town Hall we had, it was packed, and I think, it was because people knew, that they weren’t being physically recorded, as they would be if they were in the chamber. There was some conflict in the back of the room, where some people who had a real passion, were you know, aggressive to some others, but I want the Town Hall to be as open as possible.”
1. Why do you think that people who were coming to the Town Hall meeting on Oct 22, 2024 were aware that it was not going to be physically recorded?
2. Did anyone in the Town Hall meeting, express that they came, because they knew they were not going to be recorded?
3. Do you mind clarifying what you meant about witnessing a conflict in the back in the back of the room at the Town Hall meeting?
Thank you,
Sasha Izard
—————————————————————————————————
Brownoff did not respond.
I emailed:
Hello Councillor Brownoff,
Are you going to answer the question?
Thank you,
Sasha Izard
—————————————————————————————————
Brownoff responded this time:
Thank you for your email.
You can find details of Council meetings at this link:
https://www.saanich.ca/EN/main/local-government/mayor-council/council-meeting-information.html
Plus, at the beginning of these meetings the audience is advised the meeting is being webcast via live video feed on the District website. Their image and personal opinions may be collected and disclosed as part of Council proceedings.
Town Hall meetings :
“Additional Details:
- Webcasting/Remote Participation: Not available for this off-site meeting”
Plus, audience has no notice at the start of these meetings that they will be webcast via video, as it is not available as posted on Saanich website.
At this time, the Staff Report “Recording of Saanich Town Hall meetings”, received a unanimous motion of Council:
RECOMMENDATION
That Council receive the report for information.
Judy Brownoff
Saanich Councillor & CRD Director
Chair, Saanich Sustainability and Climate Action Committee
Chair, CRD Parks Committee
—————————————————————————————————
Brownoff didn’t appear to be answering the questions that I had asked. I reiterated them, in addition to asking :
“Are you going to answer those questions? If so, please put the number of each question that you are answering in the email, so that it is clear which questions you are responding to. Otherwise, your response has the appearance of being evasive. If councillors want meaningful discourse, (the reason they provided for having Town Halls), then they should provide clear responses in their communications.”
—————————————————————————————————
Councillor Brownoff did not respond.
—————————————————————————————————
A week later, I wrote:
Councillor Brownoff,
As your constituent, for the last time, I ask you to answer question #3: Do you mind clarifying what you meant about witnessing a conflict in the back in the back of the room at the Town Hall meeting?
If you do not answer this question, it will be a matter of record.
Thank you,
Sasha Izard
—————————————————————————————————
On April 17, 2025 (a few days before the previous email to Brownoff), I emailed the Mayor and each of the other councillors, as well as Saanich’s CAO:
The Subject heading was: Question for each individual councillor regarding the Oct 22, 2024 Saanich Council Town Hall Meeting at the Cedar Hill Golf Course Clubhouse
Hello Saanich Mayor and Council,
At the April 8, 2025 Saanich Special Committee of the Whole, at the 1:40:30 time point in the meeting Councillor Brownoff said “That first Town Hall we had, it was packed, and I think, it was because people knew, that they weren’t being physically recorded, as they would be if they were in the chamber. There was some conflict in the back of the room, where some people who had a real passion, were you know, aggressive to some others, but I want the Town Hall to be as open as possible.”
The following day on April 9, I emailed Councillor Brownoff the following question:
“3. Do you mind clarifying what you meant about witnessing a conflict in the back in the back of the room at the Town Hall meeting?”
In that question and in that email I was referring to the Oct 22, 2024 Town Hall that Councillor Brownoff had mentioned.
Since asking that specific question, Councillor Brownoff has not responded to it.
I am asking each one of you the Mayor and the Council individually, whether or not at the Oct 22, 2024 Saanich Town Hall meeting at the Cedar Hill Golf Course Clubhouse, you witnessed “some conflict in the back of the room, where some people who had a real passion, were you know, aggressive to some others,”?
Thank you,
Sasha Izard
—————————————————————————————————
Only one Councillor (Westhaver) responded back to me in regard to whether or not they saw what Brownoff described at the Town Hall:
Hello Sasha and I hope you had a lovely long Easter weekend.
I am really not in a position to comment as I was focused on the speaker who had the floor during the night.
Take care!
Sincerely,
Mena
Councillor M. Westhaver
—————————————————————————————————
I replied:
Hello Councillor Westhaver,
Thank you for your response.
I would imagine if there was a ruckus in the back of that tight and crammed room, you would have noticed, even with your focus on the speaker.
– Sasha Izard
—————————————————————————————————
In other words, not one other Councillor confirmed Brownoff’s narrative of the Town Hall “There was some conflict in the back of the room, where some people who had a real passion, were you know, aggressive to some others”.
Not one person whom, I spoke to who were at the town hall meeting recalled this either. I also asked publicly on Facebook if anyone who were at the meeting recalls such an event having taken place there. Not one person answered in the affirmative.
With not one other member of the Council, nor anyone in the public confirming Brownoff’s statement regarding the town hall meeting, and especially Brownoff’s refusal to answer questions about her statement, it seems that the only person that has memory of such an event having happened is Councillor Brownoff herself.
—————————————————————————————————
Conclusion:
This investigation has shown that there is a history of the Mayor and at least one councillor making statements regarding events at town hall meetings which are not corroborated by even the same Mayor and Councillor.
The Mayor was not even present at the Town Hall meeting he referred to that took place on May 6, 2025.
Following on the Mayor’s statements, as well of those of at least one councillor, and a vague staff report that used qualifiers like “may” and “informal” to describe the meeting, the news media have drummed up their own narrative of “raucous” and “boisterous” meetings, that they themselves are unable to account for.
The both alleged and unfounded claims about these public meetings were rendered unaccountable from the very outset by the councillors themselves who refused to allow town hall meetings to be recorded in the first place, thus making their claims about such meetings and the media’s narration of the events, as practically unverifiable, and they’ve done everything they can it seems not to verify their own comments discussed. When asked questions about their claims, those making such claims have refused to respond.
This unfounded narrative has been utilized to clamp down on open-topic public input to Saanich Council.
The media do not question this faulty narrative, they help propel, embellish and even create. Their role is one of taking an active part in its fabrication.
The so-called journalists do not function as journalists. They function as scribes (although not very faithful ones). The role of the journalists is hardly different from their ancient forbears in Mesopotamia who would uncritically write down, the narratives of their lords, however fanciful and contrived they might be. I may have to apologize to ancient scribes, who at least probably did their best to record their lord’s words as they were, and generally did a pretty good job it. The only difference is that these new scribes, and in particular their editors also seem to include their own creative writing skills in advancing a groundless narrative that they themselves cannot and refuse to account for when confronted on it.
The role of the free press in a democratic society is to protect the public interest by accurately reporting on events and asking critical questions, yet they themselves cannot answer critical questions about the sources of their own reporting.
The modern journalists/editor is seldom present at any of the meetings they write about. They simply repeat what they were told by the Mayor’s office often verbatim, without critical inquiry, or they even embellish already vague and questionable content from staff reports.
Other press picks up on it, and rather doing their own research, they simply parrot and amplify an already generated narrative not-based on facts, and which cannot be accounted for. As a result they form a buzz out of a fiction that has been spun out of the process.
What is lost at the end of all this? Local democracy.
—————————————————————————————————
Addendum:
The latest example of faux journalism on this issue comes from Adam of Stirling of CFAX.
The media circus on this issue wouldn’t have been complete without Stirling weighing in.
Someone tweeted about this article on Twitter.
Stirling responded:
Someone replied:
Stirling unable to defend his own assertions, did not respond to the question asking for evidence of his own claims. This is standard practice by media and elected officials as has been shown in this article.
Let’s break down Stirling’s comment, which appears to be corporate gaslighting of the residents of Saanich:
“I’m inclined to believe the meetings have been somewhat raucous. Council doesn’t want them back in city hall where it’s harder not to livestream them, but they’re moving them there for security reasons. The incentives don’t align as we might expect.” – Adam Stirling (CFAX 1070)
Let’s start with his words “I’m inclined to believe”. Do you think inclination to belief passes muster in the scientific community? This type of comment would have been laughed at by skeptic philosophers 2500 years ago. Has CFAX taken a time machine back to the days of pre-skepticism? How about their listeners?
“somewhat raucous”
Upon reading this article Stirling has now even diluted the media claim of raucous! However, he still hangs on to a watered down version that he is “inclined to believe”.
“Council doesn’t want them back in city hall where it’s harder not to livestream them“
The elephant in the room question (don’t expect a ‘journalist’ like Stirling to ask it: why does council not want the public meetings recorded?
Because in reality that is what this is all about isn’t it? They eliminated recorded open forums on the basis of having town halls out of the council chambers and thus unrecorded, as preferable, and then when they still couldn’t stand the public voicing their opinions even unrecorded, they reduced the town halls to a 1 hour of open public input unrecorded in the actual council chambers 3 times a year, practically back where they started. The key difference? This giant maneuver and all the gaslighting of the public that attended it achieved what the elected officials and staff wanted all along, which was to have public input on open topics off the record.
“but they’re moving them there for security reasons“
When asked for his evidence for that, he has none. Again the media demonstrates that they are playing along with a fake narrative of fear that is being used to prevent local democracy (open public input to elected officials on the record).
Stirling concluded his Tweet with yet another sentence that has no meaning whatsoever.
“The incentives don’t align as we might expect.“
When asked to back up his assertions he refused.
This is our phony media at work, gaslighting the public as part of a false narrative that is used to suppress local democracy by preventing the public from being able to speak publicly on the record on open subject matter before their elected officials.
This is where we are in the 21st century in Canada.
—————————————————————————————————
Although the media and politicians, are clearly operating from the same playbook; those who wrote about these events in the press for the most part were not even in attendance at the events they wrote about. At least honesty can be found among the residents themselves.
Jenus Freezen, a Saanich resident who attended the July 7, 2025 Saanich council meeting on the Quadra McKenzie Plan draft, that was labeled “raucous” afterward by members of the Press that were not in attendance, wrote:
“I didn’t witness any raucous behaviour, in fact quite the opposite. The people attending were quite calm and engaged in the meeting. A few people began to clap but the mayor put an immediate stop to this.”
Another member of the public, who was in attendance at the May 6, 2025 Town Hall wrote on Facebook:
“I was in attendance and would use adjectives such as informal or casual rather than boisterous or raucous.”
—————————————————————————————————
See also:
The raucous hearing narrative is not new, it was used in 2022, as the development industry was attempting to push the Missing Middle Housing Initiative in the City of Victoria, something which came to fruition after the election that fall.
Excerpt: “The hearing started the way it ended: with raucous applause.
The packed room at City Hall burst into unsanctioned applause after the first speaker—Marg Gardiner, president of the James Bay Neighbourhood Association—wrapped up her speech against the proposed initiative. The outburst, and ensuing tension once Mayor Lisa Helps called for order and was booed by the crowd, set the tone for the evening. “
A raucous hearing—and generational divide—as Victoria City Council listens on Missing Middle initiative – Capital Daily
Index of articles regarding questionable media coverage of local government and public participation. – CRD Watch Homepage
Saanich’s brief experiment in Town Halls effectively ending after less than a year. That is, unless one considers having brief unrecorded public input at City Hall as Town Hall meetings. – CRD Watch Homepage
LETTER: Saanich council limits public input – Saanich News
LETTER: Saanich should rethink elimination of open forum – Saanich News
LETTER: Loss of open forums a blow to public engagement in Saanich – Saanich News
The cost of recording a Town Hall plummets from previous estimation by Saanich’s Corporate Officer. Council rejects recording options anyway. – CRD Watch Homepage
—————————————————————————————————
Appendix 1: Staff Report attached to the Aug 11, 2025 Saanich Council meeting in regard to the following item:
CRD Watch Homepage 
Leave a comment