York Regional Council is removing an irreplaceable archive of Council and Committee video recordings from the internet under a policy adopted in 2017 which requires videos to come down at the end of each Council term plus 6 months. 

This policy is crazy beyond words. 

We need to see and hear what our elected politicians say and do on our behalf.

It wasn’t very long ago that York Regional Council was a closed book. A decade ago I was calling on the Council to video stream its meetings. I was complaining that Council meetings were live audio streamed but no video. And Committee meetings were not broadcast or streamed at all. If you wanted to know what was happening you had to be physically present. I often was. It was all straight out of the 1950s.

I said the College of Cardinals was more open and transparent than York Region.

Not Pretty Enough

I recall Markham’s Mayor Frank Scarpitti fretting that he wasn’t pretty enough for the cameras. He was worried they would zoom in on him. That his balding head would reflect the bright lights. He believed audio was more than adequate. (Photo: Frank "Pretty Boy" Scarpitti on the left with King Township's Steve Pellegrini.)

Things have moved on since then but the policy is still stuck in a 25 May 2017 time warp. The resolution the Council adopted back then concerned how long recordings would remain online; it did not explicitly require their destruction. I don’t know if the videos are destroyed or if they are piled up somewhere in the basement of the Regional HQ.

The staff report that went to the 25 May meeting said there was no technical impediment to archiving all meetings. 

A video (or audio) archive is hugely important if we are to keep tabs on our elected officials and discourage them from gilding the lily and re-inventing their past.

Authenticity

We all crave authenticity in the politicians who make important decisions on our behalf. We don't want them to pretend to be someone they are not.

The rolling deletion of the video archive is removing key evidence showing how members of York Regional Council deal with the business before it. Whether they sit on their hands, say nothing and gaze out of the window like Tom Vegh. Or participate actively, shaping and leading the debate. 

After reading the Newmarket Today interview with Tom Vegh I was struck by the extravagant claims he was making about himself.

“I take representing Newmarket seriously, and being present, prepared and engaged is fundamental to that responsibility. Involvement goes beyond attendance. At Newmarket council, I participate fully in discussions and decision-making… At York Region, much of the detailed work takes place through committees and boards before matters reach Regional Council.”

So I turned to the video record of the York Regional Council debate on 29 September 2022 on the funding the Inn From The Cold, the charity Vegh used to run as Executive Director. 

The Minutes record decisions and show who was present but now the video has come down we have lost the record of who said what.  I have the clearest possible recollection that Vegh was silent throughout the entire debate.

Attendance Record

Why is this is important? If Tom Vegh can lie about his attendance record he can lie about pretty much anything else.

He tells us:

“Involvement goes beyond attendance."

Prove it.

We can’t. Not until the videos go back on-line.

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In his interview with Newmarket Today on 12 October 2026, our Deputy Mayor and Regional Councillor, Tom Vegh, said he had missed two Newmarket/York Region meetings in the 2022-2026 term, when he missed 18.