Outgoing councillor Rebecca Johnson has joined city administrators in raising the alarm over what appears to be the low number of confirmed
candidates for this fall’s municipal election. In 2018 there were apparently twice as many
registered candidates at this point. On
the one hand, this is probably not a surprise given the last few years have
been exhausting because of the pandemic not to mention the worst winter in two
decades has left people scrambling to repair damage to homes and basements. People are preoccupied on numerous fronts now
and running for council is probably not at the top of their list. Moreover, there is still almost two months to
go until the August 19th deadline and if the past is any indication,
there will be plenty of candidates springing from under the woodwork any day
soon.
Of course, given the record low turnout in the recent
provincial election, it is a reasonable question to ask if there is a lack of
engagement with this year’s coming municipal election. Political life has never been more challenging
given the presence of social media which makes election campaigns often more
akin to a process of ritualistic character assassination than a debate of
ideas. There is probably also a sense of
fatigue in Thunder Bay over constant issues that never seem to be resolved and in
recent years appear to have only grown whether it is crime or deteriorating infrastructure. One expects this year’s issues will be quite
similar to those of 2018 and one senses this endless wheel of time litany is
discouraging to many.
And then there is the process of running for municipal
office which is not just about signing up to appear on a ballot, but which over
time has involved like everything else into a more involved bureaucratic process. Nomination papers must be filed by appointment
only. You need the endorsement of at
least 25 people if you wish to run for Mayor or councillor – a spur of the
moment decision it is not. There is a
filing fee, a declaration of qualifications and a consent to release personal
information. While one might want to
discourage frivolous candidacies, at the same time, one may need to review the
process to see if it can be made more candidate friendly.
Yet, it remains that there is probably not going to be a
shortage of candidates. This type of
hand wringing has happened before and will happen again. During the 2018 municipal election campaign
in Thunder Bay, there were similar
concerns being expressed by early July as with the exception of the Mayor’s
position, there was
a drop in the number of candidates seeking municipal office in most of the wards. It turns out after the story went out, a slew
of candidates came forth and the total number of candidates running for
municipal office in Thunder Bay rivalled
that of much larger cities. There were 101 candidates vying for office of 2018
with 26 going after an at-large position which pretty much guaranteed victory
for incumbents.
In the end, the chief beneficiary of a plethora of candidates
is incumbents who already have deep rooted name recognition. More candidates split and fracture any opposition
vote whereas fewer candidates running allows dissenting or dissatisfied voters
an opportunity to coalesce around an opponent and bring incumbents down. It is
noteworthy that many incumbents have not declared yet either – including the current
Mayor. Incumbents announcing too early potentially
scares off candidates and reduces the candidate pool, so the trick is to lay
low and wait for the competition to reveal itself in sufficiently large numbers
and then emerge. One suspects the same
is going to happen yet again and by August we will be lamenting that there are
too many candidates, and the same faces will be getting in again. Thunder Bay’s wheel of time continues.
