Whitehorse city councillor feels pressured to stop bringing her baby to meetings | CBC News

A Whitehorse city councillor says she feels like she’s being pressured to stop bringing her baby to council meetings — something she says came as a surprise and raises questions about inclusivity in politics.

The mayor, however, says the city’s trying to find a solution that works for everyone.

Councillor Michelle Friesen’s son, Theo, was born in July 2022 and has occasionally joined her for meetings and community events ever since. Friesen said she thought that was being well-received until she received a phone call from Mayor Laura Cabott late last month. 

“Some staff and some of my fellow colleagues on council had asked her to contact me and let me know not to bring him to meetings anymore,” Friesen told CBC News on Monday.

“So, I was quite surprised by that because that was kind of the first I had heard anything other than, you know, positivity around the situation.” 

According to Friesen, Cabott said some people had reported having a hard time hearing or staying focused during meetings with Theo in the room, and had also expressed concerns that Friesen was missing out on important information if she had to, for example, step aside for a diaper change. 

Friesen, however, said those concerns are unfounded. 

“I work incredibly hard as a councillor and I’ve never felt distracted or like I couldn’t do my job because I had my son there with me,” she said. 

“And you know, other people have to get up and go to the washroom and things like that too, right? So it’s really, I feel, an unfair standard that’s being placed on me as a mother.” 

Friesen added that the phone call with Cabott didn’t seem “malicious,” but that she felt “like at the end of the day, the option provided to me … was that [Theo] wasn’t going to be welcome anymore.”

Disruption and distraction, mayor says

Cabott confirmed to CBC News that she’d called Freisen to share concerns that some city staff and councillors had brought to her over the course of a few months, as well as some of her own.

“Councillor Friesen has brought her child to a number of meetings starting when he was quite young and you know, he was very, very quiet,” Cabott said.

“But now he’s a thriving young guy and he’s busy as he should be and he’s healthy and engaging — and that creates disruption and distraction, as you can imagine.”

Cabott said she never told Friesen to stop bringing her son to meetings, but instead emphasized that she wants to “try and find a solution that works for everyone.”

“We’re making important decisions on behalf of citizens and everybody … needs to be able to work in a space where they can participate fully so that we can all, including Councillor Friesen, be able to to take all that information in, to debate, to have dialogue, to learn to make decisions,” she said.

“So that’s the environment that I’m trying to create.”

Friesen argues that having children in council chambers “serves as a reminder of who we’re working for.” 

That’s echoed by Chi Nguyen, the Toronto-based executive director of the advocacy group Equal Voice. The non-profit works to promote gender parity in politics.

“When we make policy decisions, we actually are making them for our kids and we’re making them for multiple generations — and to actually have a live reminder of that in the chambers or on city council floors, is really powerful,” Nguyen said.

Nguyen says it’s about flexibility, and being more accommodating to young parents who want to serve their communities through politics. 

“If a person decides that they’re able to do the job, and is continuing to still fulfil the requirements, we can make space for that. And we absolutely should,” she said.

‘This was a piece of my culture’

Friesen confirmed that there were plans to have an internal meeting to discuss the issue, though no date has been set yet. 

However, she said no one had previously approached her about finding her son a distraction. She also finds the issue frustrating because she’s advocated for inclusivity in politics, and is a young Indigenous mother herself. 

“This was a piece of my culture, that children were always welcome in the room where decisions were being made. And so this is just a way for me to kind of bring a piece of myself and of my culture into these spaces,” Friesen, a Ta’an Kwäch’än Council citizen, said.

“It just sucks to have to kind of like, fight to be allowed to participate like everyone else does, and it feels like another example of trying to educate others on how these systems don’t work for people like me and … for equal representation and equal participation.”

Friesen also said that she’d received private messages of support from other councillors, and that she planned to bring Theo to Monday night’s council meeting.

“For me, this is really difficult and it is really exhausting,” she said, “but if I can just make the space safer and more inviting and easier for the next person to come in and not have to have these same conversations? Then, I mean, that’s what I’m trying to do.”