The city's planning and economic development committee has met for nearly as much time this year as the other five other standing committees combined. The committee has been in session for 69 hours so far this year. Eleven of its fifteen meetings lasted longer than four hours, and five of those exceeded six hours each. The longest was 422 minutes – just over seven hours.

At the other end of the scale, the standing committee on community services met for a total of only four hours, and the social services committee was in session for only ten hours. The strategic planning and budgets committee also ranked near the bottom with just six hours of meetings in the first nine months of the year.

The latter three committees have all had their next regular meeting cancelled for lack of any urgent agenda items. The average length of their most recent meetings was 25 minutes. Over the course of the year, none of these committees has held more than eight meetings.

The other two standing committees have met twelve times each. Public works, infrastructure and environment (PWIE) has logged 28 hours since January, while the corporate administration committee has racked up 27 hours. PWIE had one five-hour session, but otherwise kept meetings under three hours each. Corporate administration meetings rarely exceed two-and-a-half hours in length, with one dramatic exception. In June the committee met for over six hours when it considered the new development charges bylaw.

This exception, plus the extraordinary length of the planning committee meetings, underlines the central activity of city council in making decisions about land use and development.

Each of the six standing committees of council has six to eight members, and is scheduled to meet twice a month, except during July and August. The exception is the planning committee which also meets once in each of the two summer months.

But even discounting its two summer meetings, the planning committee has racked up more hours than any two other standing committees of council. Agendas of the other four committees are dealt with by a committee of the whole (COW) during this period.

The big time variations in committee sessions also mean dramatic differences in the scheduling of individual councillors. At one end of the scale, Maria Pearson, who sits on four committees including the three most active, has been eligible to participate in standing committee decision-making for nearly 130 hours so far this year. At the other end, the two committees that Bernie Morelli sits on, have met for less than 14 hours since January.

Morelli is also chair of the police services board. It has met seven times this year. Minutes have been posted for four of these, but the time of adjournment is not provided. In each of those sessions, the public portion of the meeting has not exceeded one hour.

One of the factors affecting committee meeting lengths has been an increasing tendency this year for council to refer major decisions to COW meetings where all councillors are eligible to fully participate.

The Lister Block decision, the peak oil report, climate change policy, and decisions about the city's 30-year growth plan were all debated in one or more of this year's twenty COW meetings including eight devoted entirely to the annual city budget deliberations.

The mandate of the various standing committees is described on the CATCH website under each committee name. All figures in this review were taken from the official minutes of the committees prepared by city staff.

Standing Committee Name	No.	Total minutes	% of total	Total hours	Aver. in minutes	Aver. hours
Planning and Economic Development	15	4142	48.0	69 hours	276	4-1/4
Public Works, Infrastructure & Environment	12	1670	19.4	28 hours	139	2-1/3
Corporate Administration	12	1615	18.7	27 hours	135	2-1/4
Social Services	8	597	6.9	10 hours	75	1-1/4
Strategic Planning & Budgets	6	365	4.2	6 hours	61	1
Community Services	7	237	2.8	4 hours	34	half
TOTALS	60	8626	100	144 hours