The Brampton Guardian reports that after a 90-day trial, Brampton City Council has voted 8 to 3 in favor of continuing to ban texting, tweets and surfing while in Council Meetings.
We love banning in Brampton. Unregulated fireworks – Banned. Cat’s in pet stores – Banned. Councillors texting and tweeting – Banned. If it wasn’t so ludicrous, it would be hilarious. This seems to be the only way for Councillors to give the impression that they are listening to concerned citizens. I wish that they would also have put a ban on reading magazines as well, as one Councillor seemed more engaged in perusing a magazine than listening to delegations during the critical LRT debate.
One Councillor suggested that elected officials should mutually agree to uphold a culture around the table that was respectful. That would be nice, however, it seems this Council has a long way to go to accomplish that feat. Banning is easy, but we’ve also banned rational decision making. At least they didn’t ban cell phones in the gallery, because how else could I tweet.
