Councillor Cunningham looks to seek more engagement with labour on issues in Prince Rupert

The thoughts of Prince Rupert's
labour movement may soon be sought
out by City Council if a suggestion
from Councillor Barry Cunningham
finds some traction

Labour representatives on the North Coast may one day be tapped to provide some feedback and guidance to City Council members, at least if one Prince Rupert City Councillor can move forward a suggestion from Tuesday evening.

In a bit of a trial balloon, Councillor Barry Cunningham picked up on the theme of seeking wider engagement with the Labour movement in the region, following up on an observation that came up during the discussion related to Councillor Mirau's proposed Small Business Committee for City Council.

During that review of the proposal to seek the feedback from representatives of the business community on a number of community initiatives, Councillor Joy Thorkelson outlined an alternative scenario, one where Council members might see the city's labour movement become involved with discussions on city plans and projects.

During her presentation, Ms. Thorkelson noted that her example of a larger focus on labour contributions through Council, probably wouldn't have a lot of success in moving forward should she bring it to the discussion phase.

However, the idea of engaging with Labour resonated with Councillor Cunningham, who doesn't necessarily see a formal Labour Advisory committee being set up. But offered up the opinion that he wouldn't mind having Council hear the concerns of labour in the region and share thoughts on potential solutions to problems that Labour members might have to offer.

"The unions have built this town, they can contribute a lot to this community and we don't seem to ask them, CUPE, Longshoremen's, Carpenters, there's lots of talent in those unions ... they've got a broad picture for this town ... something like that can come out of an advisory committee on labour alone, it doesn't have to be under the wing of council, but it would be a good committee to have"

The idea has seemingly so caught his attention, that he recommended that Council explore the issue further when they hold their planned workshop to address the issues surrounding Councillor Mirau's Small Business Committee proposal.

Councillor Cunningham's suggestion can be reviewed through the City's Video Archive starting at the one hour twenty six minute mark.



For an overall look at Tuesday's Council session see our Timeline feature here.

For further items related to City Council discussions see our Council Archive page.