SYDNEY, N.S. — The mayor’s office overlooks the waters of Sydney harbour, but Amanda McDougall doesn’t need to look out the window to find her inspiration.
Her raison d’etre is either in her arms or on the comfy couch turned bed that sits beside her work desk. His name is Emmett. He’s five-weeks-old and is the apple of his mother’s eye.
“He is a wonderful and beautiful reminder of why I am doing this job,” said McDougall, who gave birth to her newborn son in late November, just six weeks after being elected as the Cape Breton Regional Municipality's first-ever female mayor.
After a short break from official duties, the new mayor is now back at work in her fourth-floor suite in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality civic centre on the Sydney Esplanade. And baby Emmett is there by her side.
For her part, McDougall makes no apologies for taking her new son to work. However, she said she understands that some people still want to know how she can perform her mayoral duties while taking care of a newborn.
“I feel really fortunate that I can do all of this at once,” she said while discussing the matter during a Tuesday morning interview in her office.
“Because he is so little he needs to be with me, but I know I also have a responsibility to keep doing my job. If there is anything that COVID taught us it was that we can balance our work life and our family life in a really fair way, we can do them simultaneously and we can do both jobs really, really well. So, I am taking those lessons and I am implementing them here.”
So far, the experience has been positive. McDougall held a meeting on Tuesday morning with a local interest group. Baby Emmett was there.
“One of the comments I heard from one of the group members was how it is nice to have children around because their presence softens the room and makes us think about things a little bit differently,” she related.
“I think that is important because we are at a pivotal time in the CBRM. We have a whole bunch of wonderful development taking place and now is the time we start thinking about the generations to come and how we can leave legacies and sustainability in terms of our economy, our environment, in all of the decisions that we make.”
McDougall said the confidence she has in being a mother and a mayor at the same time comes in part from other local women who have successfully kept working while nurturing babies and small children.
“I look to my peers but I also look at our own moms and grandmothers who didn’t have an opportunity to go on a maternity leave,” she said.
“They had babies or they worked or they had babies and worked their tails off at home taking care of the home and all of the children and their communities. This is not new. This is really not new. Clearly, I am not the first woman to have a baby.”
McDougall demonstrated her ease with the situation when she picked Emmett up and wandered around the spacious inner sanctum while not missing a beat in the discussion that had turned to some of her mayoral initiatives.
With the baby safely nestled into her protective arms, McDougall spoke of a couple of ideas she plans to bring before council.
She said that unlike her predecessor, Cecil Clarke, she does not plan to hire either an executive assistant or a mayor’s office communications person. Instead, she said she would like to create two new positions.
The first is an Indigenous Municipal Advisor who would be tasked with keeping the avenues of communication open between the CBRM and its two Indigenous communities.
“I’m talking about meaningful consultation, partnerships and the implementation of a municipal focus on reconciliation – this is really important,” said McDougall.
She said the second position would be a Community Consultation and Policy Developer.
“I know people give me the gears from time to time because I am always using the words community consultation,” acknowledged McDougall.
“They ask if it will halt things. I say no, it makes sure that projects are being done in a thoughtful way and that they are done in a way that respects our various histories, values, the environment and the community. We need to have good standards of consultation.
“I feel we need to do better not only in terms of reaching out to the community but in allowing the community to reach back into city hall and to make sure it is part of the process, part of what we are doing, and allowed to give opinion.”
McDougall also said she has been mulling over the logistics of how council meets. She said it is time to examine some alternatives to meeting times, frequencies and lengths, as well as whether council’s general committee setup is the most effective way to go.
Council will hold its first meeting of 2021 later this month. It will take place in the round council chamber at city hall.
David Jala is a political reporter at the Cape Breton Post.
