What I take from the authorities is that the process to be followed by council in these controversial matters must be fair in that the procedure adopted must give interested parties a proper opportunity to address the matter being considered by council. If a satisfactory opportunity has been given to opponents of the change to consider all relevant information and to make such comments as they see fit, then it will be for council to decide what in their considered view is in the public interest. Having heard from those opposed to the bylaws in this case, the District council decided that it wished to have further comment on certain subjects from its staff. As the cases point out, this is not uncommon and is usually thought to be an acceptable process. If after receiving such information from staff, council was then required to call a new public hearing, the process would tend to be endless. I make reference to a comment of Southin J.A. in Jones v. Delta, supra, at 29 of the report: To say that there ought to be a further hearing in this kind of process merely to enable someone who has already made his point to repeat his point yet again is to undermine the whole process of deliberation. Many deliberative bodies, both public and private, have, if not rules against repetition, at least a policy encouraging an absence of repetition. In the courtroom, judges consider they have the right to stop counsel who is repeating himself or is merely echoing what has been said by other counsel, and only in the rarest of cases do judges permit a matter to be reargued.
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