Guelph City Council supports the Elect Respect pledge and commits to: Treat others with respect in all spaces—public, private, and online…

4:02:55pledge so over to you councillor Klassen thank you uh yes thank you mr mayor and thank you to my

4:03:01colleagues um i'm going to try to be very brief um but i i'm bringing this forward because i've felt

4:03:09firsthand how discouraging hostile spaces can be and in in in political sphere um and i i would

4:03:19like to help change that so this motion is about creating a culture of respect so that everyone

4:03:24can participate safely um and it's about taking a pledge the elect respect pledge sets a clear

4:03:30standard that respect and safety are expected in our political space um and i hope that you've had

4:03:36a chance to take a look at it but the motion is built on the resolution um uh that's put forward

4:03:43by the elect respect campaign the elect respect campaign was started um by a group of counselors

4:03:49and uh other politicians uh and mayor in the halton region um originally put forward by

4:03:55maryan mead ward who is the mayor of berlington um where um they were having a discussion around

4:04:02abuse and harassment in um political life and um i think that we are no strangers to the political

4:04:11discourse that is happening right now um it's it's a toxic atmosphere and i think there's a number

4:04:17of us who have also been um uh part of that or targets of that and um so what i liked about the

4:04:27elect respect campaign is that it actually brings us together um in in a group of politicians um and

4:04:34it holds us to um these standards and so there's six commitments um that that i'm asking each of you

4:04:40to take um and uh there's a couple of other parts to it uh that asks it to be sent to other levels

4:04:47of government as well and uh the pledge is also online so anyone can take it it doesn't have to

4:04:53just be counselors it can be members of the public it can be staff it can be other organizations i

4:04:59recently read uh that a chamber of commerce uh also took the pledge um which i think is exciting

4:05:05um because i think we really need to be focusing on the ideas and the policies and not um personal

4:05:13attacks um and uh toxic behaviors and so i'm i'm asking if you would please support um uh the

4:05:21motion but also could you please um take the pledge online if you haven't already i know a

4:05:28number of you have so thank you for that and i'm obviously a little bit nervous on this one because

4:05:33um it's just it's it's it you know it impacts us and i know it's impacted a number of us in different

4:05:39ways um so thank you for your attention and i also have a few um uh cards to give out i just

4:05:46wanted to say thank you to councillor hauser um um who picked them up at the healthy democracy conference

4:05:53a couple weeks ago so thank you for being part of this conversation i never confirmed an official

4:06:05seconder i bet you i bet you there'll be i bet you everyone's hands would go up okay how how is

4:06:13her it is then okay okay that's fine thank you it's because you brought these back for us

4:06:20that's the reason why okay um anything as a question to councillor Klassen at all as the mover

4:06:27okay we'll do questions first and then comments if we need to uh kate mine's a comment so i can

4:06:35just go for uh just go first okay comments is fine go first so so through you um i think it's a great

4:06:42idea i think it's very complimentary to the upgraded um code of conduct that we just passed

4:06:48and um i i've seen things in the media just in terms of how other councils kind of relate to

4:06:56each other and behave and i've always been very thankful that we don't do that i have not felt

4:07:04that sort of behavior in our council and i've always been very very pleased with that um and i

4:07:10love if the the community at large would also get on board with this because that seems to be

4:07:16where where a lot of the um the behaviors tend to kind of churn and uh i think that the more we

4:07:26are in this together the better we're going to be um as a community and the more we can accomplish

4:07:33thank you thanks council kate and appreciate that gibson please

4:07:38yeah thank you uh very much um mayor gathby just i'll i'll just be a little bit vulnerable here for

4:07:47a minute you know i've i've stepped back a little bit from my social media profile in recent years

4:07:53largely just because of my enjoyment of my personal life a bit more but also just because of the level

4:07:59of um engagement that i was trying to maintain and it was bringing a lot of positive but also a lot of

4:08:05negative um a lot of negativity uh i um i will commit through this process uh i'm not a perfect

4:08:13person but um when i'm engaging with people i always try to keep in mind uh where they're

4:08:19coming from as well and trying not to match energy all the time the uh the the simplistic the

4:08:26the simplistic illustration i have is when i'm when i'm speaking to a constituent and they get

4:08:31um they're passionate they're they've got 15 minutes of my time or 10 minutes of my time and

4:08:34they really want to let me know what's bugging them and i uh i try not to match that energy

4:08:40simply because it feels to them um like i'm overly defensive and i just uh something that i

4:08:46tried to mirror in recent years that uh we while we're taking in all these um opinions uh that we

4:08:53aren't just you know simply just mirroring back what they want to hear we are we're just agreeing

4:08:58with people respectfully at times but that it's always done on a professional level and it it's

4:09:04never involved the personal so thanks very much for bringing this forward uh counselor clausen

4:09:09happy to support thanks counselor kipson does anybody else before i call the vote at all

4:09:17okay i'll just say ditto and i would also just say that um uh i want to just i want to thank

4:09:26your leadership counselor clausen for bringing this for i think it's great i want to thank uh

4:09:30counselor uh not counselor i guess uh mary and mead word i'll just say it publicly in case she

4:09:35sees this back uh for also doing this uh ontara big city mayors caucus also endorsed this a little

4:09:40while ago as a full caucus as well um i have the pin at home i forgot to bring it tonight um and uh

4:09:47an amo of course is is also on this as well attached to the healthy democracy initiative that they're

4:09:53doing as well um and finally i would just say that this is um this is directly related a lot i think

4:10:01to misinformation and disinformation and the things that um i have found um where the heightened

4:10:14disrespect and vitriol is is usually uh hovering around the target of those that are spreading

4:10:22misinformation and disinformation on purpose and um i think uh as counselor kate said that

4:10:29opportunity for us to have unity um around these values but also in speaking truth and

4:10:37printing truth and facts around things um also i think really help um in this whole endeavor

4:10:44that we have here as well um and i i've just been reminded too that you know hope i'm i'm assuming

4:10:51this is going to be unanimous uh that we um every other council uh and counselors individually

4:10:58mayors and such have really promoted that we've done this um so i would just encourage everyone

4:11:04to say like tonight on social media or tomorrow or something if you can like we've taken we've

4:11:08we've taken a stand or together in unity around these values um so that we can try to be the best

4:11:14that we can be um in trying to help our community uh and uh just as counselor gibson said you know

4:11:20you know not perfect me either by the way just in case everyone didn't know that already

4:11:25we're all not perfect uh but how we can you know work together to keep each other accountable

4:11:30on these values i think is just as important too and we do that in a respectful way as well

4:11:34um and so i do like the one that um that says uh reject and call out harassment abuse and

4:11:41personal attacks i just think that that's something that we should all try to very much me

4:11:47work on that if we see someone attacking councillor hauser or or you or or a staff member or whatever

4:11:54like we we should try to have that unity of like sticking up for each other a little bit

4:11:59around those those types of circumstances that present themselves so i love it thank you this

4:12:04is really taking fire across the whole province it's doing very very well and again i appreciate

4:12:09your leadership and bringing it forward with that i'll call the vote is anyone against the elect

4:12:15respect uh values and pledge okay just one more time anybody no it's getting okay that's the ananus

4:12:24that's great good job thank you sorry did you want to say something else you had your hand up or

4:12:29are you good no i just wanted to say thank you and um i appreciate the support and um look forward

4:12:37to many many more civil and democratic conversations in my future all right thank you again well i think