The following are the full remarks delivered by long-time Hamilton Public Library Board Member Nick van Velzen during Wednesday’s evening’s Library Board meeting debate regarding implementing a two-month pilot policy to require people entering the Central Library to either show a valid library card or obtain a guest pass.
Van Velzen served as Chair of the Library Board for many years.
You can view full video of his remarks on Facebook or Instagram
Here is the full transcript:
I have prepared remarks on this. Tonight’s decision is a big one, and it has attracted much attention. Passions are heated. People are asking the existential questions of what public libraries are for and for whom they are meant to serve. It is good that we ask these questions. The library needs to be able to defend and account for every action it takes.
There is a crisis at Central Library, and we need to address that crisis. The board has been asked to approve measures where members are asked to present library cards for entry to Central Library. This is, as the union has rightly pointed out, a barrier to entry. We as a board have always sought to reduce barriers to entry wherever we find them: physical barriers, economic barriers, social barriers, barriers of any kind. Implementing barriers is complete anathema to the kind of library community space we want to be. But we are facing a crisis, and we have to do something. The status quo is unacceptable. This has become a matter of public safety, and the library needs to be safe.
Parallels have been drawn to the time of COVID, which is fair. Now, as then, safety comes before any services we provide. Let us be clear: the library is pretty much on its own. We have community partners, but it is the library that needs to take the lead. The library needs to address this crisis with its current level of resources. We are not getting extra money from other levels of government to address this crisis. The feds are cutting back. The province has not adjusted its public library operating grant in terms of hard dollars for 30 years. Safe consumption sites were closed under this provincial administration, and I do not expect that same administration to open them back up again. Even our partner the city sought budget cuts, and we barely got the maintenance budget we requested.
Our advocacy efforts are nonstop, through FOPL [Federation of Ontario Public Libraries], through CULC [Canadian Urban Libraries Council], and through OLA [Ontario Library Association]. Even if extra help was to come from other levels of government, it will not help us when we open tomorrow. It will not come in time for March break next week. We need to act now, today, on our own. The risk is now, and we cannot wait for an incident to manifest itself. I do not see a luxury of time.
Since the time of amalgamation, the library has been expected to do more with less, and we have done a fairly good job of that—expanding hours and services without really changing our FTE count. There is, however, a hard limit to how far more with less can actually go, and we may be approaching those edges now. No extra money is coming. No extra staff are coming. However we address this crisis, it has to be with the tools the library already has.
So what does the library do? What tools does it already have to address this challenge? We can control access, we can control operating hours. Requiring library cards for entry is a barrier, but it is a minimal one. It is a reasonable next step which is intended to reduce illegal or anti-social activity by introducing a measure of accountability. Library card membership is a club, but an open one available to all. This will make Central a safer place. The library needs to be safe for everyone, and in particular, safer for families and children. Children should not be exposed to risky behavior.
If we take this next step and assure and measure its efficacy, then we can make informed decisions as to the steps after that. Is this what we want to do? No, of course not, but we have to do something. We are on our own and the cavalry is not coming. We can be a library or we can be a safe consumption site. We cannot be both; they cannot coexist. We need to stay true to our mandate of providing library services and access to information. We need to keep the library a library, and we need to be a safe, welcoming space for all, and safe before all else. I support the temporary measure of requiring library cards for entry to Central Library.
The Library Board voted 7-2 to implement the policy.
Production Details
v. 1.0.0
Published: March 13, 2026
Last updated: March 13, 2026
Author: Joey Coleman
Update Record
v. 1.0.0 original version