#21: What happened last week at CBRM council?

Last week’s meeting of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality council was nothing routine or ordinary, especially for Mayor Cecil Clarke and Councillor Amanda McDougall.

Members of council knew what was coming at the end of the meeting, but anyone who was watching would have been caught by surprise by what happened for the final half-hour of the meeting.

On this week’s episode of On the Record, Off Script we’re going to take a deep dive into all that happened in those last thirty minutes of the CBRM council meeting. 

If you haven’t heard about what happened yet here are some of the headlines from the stories that ran in Cape Breton news outlets the day after last week’s council meeting morning:

From The Cape Breton Post: Upset CBRM councillors walk out of closed-door meeting: Mayor chastises councillor for criticizing China port trip  

From the CBC: Cape Breton mayor chews out councillor for comments to media: ‘I’m happy I’m being reprimanded publicly,’ says councillor Amanda McDougall

From the Cape Breton Spectator: ‘R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Find Out What It Means To Council”

So we present today’s show in two parts:

• Part One: Points of Privilege and Order – I’ll share some clips from the council meeting at the CBRM, give you a sense of what happened, and then I’ll talk to Tom Urbaniak, Professor of Political Science, who will share his take on where the mayor erred.
• Part Two: Point of interest – I talk to Councillor Amanda MacDougall, about her experience last week, and how she handled being singled out in front of her colleagues, the media, and the public. We talk about what she’s learned and what’s happened since.

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In this week’s episode, we share an abridged version of the audio from the council meeting, but also provide the following unedited cut from the last thirty minutes of CBRM the council meeting on December 14th.