🌆🗣️This year, about twice as many people registered to delegate on the 2021 #HamOnt budget, compared to either of the last two years. Some, including three first-time delegates, say this is a sign of a pandemic-related increase in political engagement. [1/13]
https://twitter.com/TheAgenda/status/1360293739168747528
Budget delegations occur annually, and every delegate gets five minutes to speak, after which councillors can ask questions (council is expected to approve the final budget in March). This year's delegations took place Feb. 8. pub-hamilton.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?I… [2/13]
“Since everyone's home, we're all on our screens all day … We are more likely to observe what's happening and want to change these establishments,” says first-time delegate Ayla Bahram. “I think a lot of people — especially younger people — are becoming more engaged.” [3/13]
Bahram, a #McMaster student, leads an NDP politics club on campus. Despite not having held any events during the pandemic, she’s fielded many requests from her peers for membership or further information about the group. [4/13]
.@mjwhigginson also delegated to council for the first time. He says the pandemic has allowed him to think more about what he values: “It's given me a lot of time to sit in my own privilege and to reflect on that — to do a lot of reading, to do a lot of research.” [5/13] 
Higginson said the work of local non-profits, like the #JustRecoveryHamilton coalition, inspired him to be more active. In January, the coalition released recommendations #HamOnt could adopt to support vulnerable people as it recovers from COVID-19: justrecoveryhamilton.ca/the-policy-pap… [6/13]
Coalition member @EasyThePianoMan says the goal was to go beyond line items in the budget and instead to ask what the city could do to ensure people don't get left behind. That broader focus was central to two workshops the coalition offered late January. [7/13]
.@karl_andrus helped lead those, conducting a crash course on budgeting and explaining to roughly 70 attendees how to delegate. “Budgets say a lot of about the character and makeup of the city and what it prioritizes," he says, so residents should drive the conversation. [8/13]
Councillor @NrinderWard3 agrees and says she’s been telling residents how crucial their input is right now. Nann says she's heard from many constituents for the first time during the pandemic, but is also hearing less from others who she suspects are overwhelmed. [9/13]
It’s common in times of crisis for some people to become more engaged and some less, @YorkUSPPA professor Thomas Klassen says. “I think there is a group of people who — because of income insecurity, because they've been laid off, because of mental health — tuned out.” [10/13]
However, he adds, the group that becomes more engaged in a given crisis is typically larger. Politics has become more immediate for everyone, he says, and government is more involved in our lives now than before the pandemic. He says increased engagement could stick. [11/13]
“I'd like to be optimistic that, once people have taken a step, whether it's just to send an email to their city councillor or become involved in the budget, that it’s something you don't turn off when we're all vaccinated and life gets back to normal,” Klassen says. [12/13]
In the end, @AcornHamilton member Veronica Gonzalez says, people have no choice but to speak up. “It's either you speak or you fall through the cracks. And some people have fallen through the cracks.”
Read more here: tvo.org/article/speak-…
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Read more here: tvo.org/article/speak-…
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