Matt Dell Says No to Public Engagement
Arthur McInnis
Jan 14, 2026
Matt Dell Says No to Public Engagement
At the Nov 7, 2025 Council meeting while considering a report from the Committee of the Whole on October 24, 2025 Councillor Matt Dell opposed a motion on the 2025 Budget on Public Engagement. You can watch his remarks here. This is my take on them.
Councillor Dell’s argument against expanded public engagement begins with a remarkable admission: his first instinct was to wonder if he could “get his people out” to “stack the deck.” This candour is almost refreshing until you realise what it reveals. The problem isn’t just that others might mobilise. It’s that he sees citizen participation as a tool for political advantage, something to be gamed rather than welcomed.
His remedy? Not to build safeguards, transparency, or equity measures. Not to ensure all voices get heard. Instead: close the door. Be “cautious about providing opportunities.” If the game is rigged, don’t fix the rules cancel the match.
This is the logic of someone who has confused organised participation with illegitimate participation. Unions mobilise. Tenant groups mobilise. Business associations mobilise. Neighbourhood groups mobilise. In a democracy, we call that civic engagement. Dell calls it “stacking the deck.” Keep in mind that Councillor Dell was a beneficiary of that organisation when he was endorsed by the Victoria Labour Council and BCGEU in the last election.
The Housing Crisis Was Caused by… People Writing Emails?
Perhaps Dell’s most extraordinary claim is that skewed public engagement is “one of the reasons we have a housing crisis.” Let that sink in. Not zoning laws. Not financing constraints. Not senior government policy, construction capacity, interest rates, or population growth. No, it’s certain people writing in on housing policy caused a crisis affecting millions.
This is a breathtaking leap. Even if engagement was skewed (and he provides no evidence it was), a housing crisis is the product of macro forces far beyond a few emails to City Hall. At best, biased engagement might be one tiny variable in a complex political environment. Dell states it as a material cause with no chain of reasoning, no examples, no data.
It’s the kind of claim that sounds plausible in a council chamber but collapses under scrutiny. And it serves a clear purpose: to delegitimise public input by associating it with policy failure.
The “Privilege” Argument That Cuts Both Ways
Dell’s strongest normative point is that write-in participants tend to be privileged people with time, capacity, and fluency, while working families and struggling residents are left out. This is true. It’s also a reason to expand engagement, not contract it.
If participation skews toward those with resources, the answer is:
- Add time-flexible online tools.
- Use short surveys and pop-up consultations.
- Conduct targeted outreach to underrepresented communities.
- Provide translation services and accessibility supports.
Dell holds out none of this. Instead, he treats “privileged participants” as grounds to constrain input, a stance that can easily become: if you had time to write, you’re privileged, therefore less worthy of being heard.
The Ipsos Shield: When “Validity” Becomes a Weapon
Dell insists that because Council spent $75,000 on a statistically valid Ipsos survey, open write-ins will “undermine” it. This is a category error unless the motion explicitly tells staff to treat write-ins as representative data.
A survey and open submissions serve different functions:
Ipsos: Measures representative preferences and priorities across the population.
Write-ins: Surface qualitative concerns, lived experience, service impacts, edge cases, unintended consequences.
They coexist just fine if you’re clear about what each is for. Write-ins only “undermine” Ipsos if decision-makers misuse them, which is a governance problem, not an inherent flaw in public input. Having taught a course on qualitative and quantitative Research Methods for eight years I am pretty sure about this. Unfortunately, Dell is not.
You see Dell uses Ipsos validity as a rhetorical shield, so does Jeremy Caradonna who also voted against the resolution. Dell and Caradonna both submit in effect: we have science; we don’t need your messy stories. It’s technocratic legitimacy trumping democratic messiness. And it’s a choice.
Caradonna Invoked Uytae Lee in Support of His Position
In fact, Caradonna referred to him as “the great Uytae Lee”. So, who exactly is Mr Lee? Well, it turns out he is a provincial Cabinet political appointee who sits as a housing commissioner and is accountable to the executive. Like all commissioners, he advises, supports, and helps operationalise government housing priorities rather than act as a neutral or adjudicative decision-maker. Unlike other commissioners though he is also an influencer and YouTube content producer. Although Lee has no formal qualifications in nor conducts any research on urban planning he has positioned himself as an expert. Professor Erick Villagomez, of UBC had this to say about him and this practice:
“When public agencies and advocacy organizations commission content from influencers, the line between education and promotion becomes dangerously blurred, especially when the influencer lacks editorial independence or professional obligations to fairness or accuracy.”
The majority of council was thus right to discount Caradonna’s views. After all, who wants to identify with the content producer behind “The Problem with Public Hearings”.
Thompson voted with Caradonna and Dell without a word perhaps conscious of the fact that opposing public engagement was not a good look.
“We’re Always Open” (But We Won’t Institutionalise Hearing You)
Dell reassures us that emails and phone lines are “always open.” But being open is not the same as listening. People often experience “open inbox” government as shouting into a void: you can send an email, but nothing changes. No acknowledgment. No synthesis. No evidence it was even read.
Formalising engagement creating a structured channel, analysing themes, reporting back signals that input matters. Dell argues against this because it “burdens staff” and invites manipulation. But if people are already emailing, the marginal work is about organising input, not creating it.
What he’s really saying is: you may speak, but we won’t institutionalise hearing you. Inbox open; door closed.
The Ghost of 2022: “Listen to Residents”
In 2022, Councillor Dell campaigned on a clear message: “The most important thing the council can do is listen to residents and work to address their concerns.” This was reported in the Times Colonist when it published its candidate profile on him.
Three years later, “listen” has been quietly redefined:
- Listen only through statistically valid channels.
- Be wary of spontaneous citizen input.
- Treat organised participation as manipulation.
- Avoid “burdening staff” by analysing what residents say.
By so doing Dell collapses “participation” into “manipulation,” treats the remedy as limiting public channels rather than improving equity and safeguards, wildly overstates causation (housing crisis), and uses Ipsos validity as a rhetorical shield against inconvenient qualitative feedback, a stance contradicted by his own “listen to residents” campaign promise.
OUST DELL, THE MAYOR AND GANG OF FIVE
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Resource:
https://pub-victoria.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=cedc54c4-03d8-4932-a328-5b428b524164&Agenda=Merged&lang=English&Item=33&Tab=attachments
See also:
Ebycrats by Arthur McInnis – CRD Watch Homepage
Et Tu, Uytae? – Spacing Vancouver | Spacing Vancouver
Letter to Councillor Dell in regard to your comments during the deliberations regarding the City’s membership in the Urban Development Institute at the City of Victoria Sept 4 Committee of the Whole – CRD Watch Homepage
Index of articles about lobbying influence on the City of Victoria and deliberations regarding it. – CRD Watch Homepage
CRD Watch Homepage 
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