It's not easy being different.
That's what Coun. Cam MacKay is learning as a rookie member of city council.
After he was first elected to council in October, MacKay was quick to assert himself. He was the most active in bringing forward motions during budget time and, by his own assessment, has been the most apt to challenge administration's recommendations. He's also been the most active in having his motions voted down and the most likely to be the lone dissenter on 6-1 votes.
Being a standout is tiring, MacKay conceded in a recent interview, but he also stressed his views are in line with the rest of council more often than not.
"I certainly don't appreciate losing," he said.
"There's lots of things that we agree on but … my view of what the city government should be doing is different than others," he said.
The signs of fatigue emerged publicly during the Feb. 7 council meeting when the discussion turned to ways of improving communication with the public. MacKay was interested in delaying a decision but declined to make a motion when prompted by Mayor Nolan Crouse.
"Mr. Mayor, I'm not going to put forward a motion," MacKay responded. "Whenever I do that it seems unlikely to pass. I'll let someone else put forward a postponement motion if that has any interest to anyone else on council."
Coun. Malcolm Parker took up the gauntlet but he and MacKay lost the vote 5-2.
"To a certain extent I am tired of being the one having to bring forward a motion all the time," MacKay said in an interview.
Asked whether he views himself as a lone voice on council, he said:
"There are certain issues where that would be the case. On the other side of the fence there's a lot of things that I've brought to the table … that were adopted, especially during the budget period," he said.
MacKay described his role on council as that of a fiscal watchdog who hasn't lost touch with public perception of council decisions.
Learning curve
All councillors feel the sting of losing a vote once in a while, said Mayor Nolan Crouse.
St. Albert councillors don't do a lot of consulting with each other prior to public meetings to gauge support for an idea or exert influence, he said, and it's not something he'd like to see take root.
"If I'm going to bring forward a motion and pre-lobby everybody so it's a seven-nothing vote all the time, that starts to not become public either," Crouse said. "We're public and if there's debate, there's debate."
One lesson that MacKay has learned about council politics is not to take anything for granted.
"Sometimes I guess you make the mistake of thinking something will be a slam dunk," he said.
An example was his Nov. 29 motion to introduce efficiency audits. Despite the fact that many of the councillors had favoured some sort of review during the election, MacKay found his motion defeated 6-1 amid concerns about costs and lack of detail in the plan. MacKay has been reworking his ideas and will make them public in the near future, he said.
For the most part, he feels the votes he's lost have been ones that deal with day-to-day business and not his valued priorities. He plans to continue to speak up.
"I could go along with a lot of stuff, too, but if there's not someone there at least pointing out something else, the issue will just die," he said. "I'm never afraid to really voice my opinion."
