Taxpayer-funded lunches for Victoria council members are off the table — at least for now — after a unanimous vote Thursday.
Coun. Ben Isitt won support for his motion that catered lunches for council and committee meetings be suspended immediately.
Because the late-morning vote was in favour of stopping the lunches right away, food was not provided during Thursday’s meeting.
The question will come before council again on Jan. 18 as part of budget deliberations for the coming fiscal year. At that meeting, council members will also look at another motion from Isitt that the $10,000 spent annually on the lunches be allocated to the city’s housing reserve fund.
Isitt argued in favour of stopping the meals since council members can attend meetings remotely, saying the move also recognizes the economic hardship in the community due to the pandemic.
The issue of whether to provide meals for council members has been raised before. Coun. Marianne Alto, who, along with Coun. Charlayne Thornton-Joe, has not been eating the catered lunches, said “a number of us” have been trying to get the issue on the table for many years.
Alto said she hopes the decision is permanent. “I don’t even see why it would be debated again during the budget, because it is pretty straightforward and has no end point.”
Coun. Stephen Andrew, who pledged during the byelection campaign to help end the lunches, also spoke in favour. “As I’ve said for a long time: ‘No more lunches.’ ”
Mayor Lisa Helps said the decision on whether to permanently suspend catered lunches will be made at budget time.
“I will strongly encourage council that if we are going to get into removing something permanently from the budget, I just cannot stress strongly enough that should be done in an orderly way after budget consultation has closed,” she said.
Public consultation on the city’s draft financial plan is underway. An online survey closes this weekend and a virtual town hall is scheduled for Wednesday.
• Online: victoria.ca/EN/main/city/ city-budget.html.
