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There will be an election for municipal councils in the Fall. By the dearth of campaigning you would never know. In Cobourg the lack of candidates appearing for election, to date, has sparked the Mayor to remark that it's a good thing because people don't want to be bothered by campaigners during the summer. Perhaps she meant to say that lazy candidates don't want to work for re-election this year!
One phenomenum that has emerged this year, all over the Province, is the lack of people seeking public office. In Cobourg only one person has picked up registration papers and in Port Hope there are no candidates so far. Don't think that this lack of interest is confined to Northumberland. The "London Free Press" ran a story this week, which detailed the lack of electoral interest in South Western Ontario. Their conclusion was that only incumbents are rushing to the registration tables.
Now why is this? Have we no new candidates wanting to get involved? Is the job too onerous and has it scared people off, and only the incumbents who have figured out how to make the job fit are willing to do it? These questions have to be answered because anybody wanting to govern us should be eager to get voted in. We need to see candidates so that we can make them accountable at the polls.
This accountability goes much further than the Dean Pepper style of campaigning, you know the style: register, turn up at the required number of public meetings, spend as little money as possible on a leaflet and then sit back and count the votes. Don't knock it he has been doing it successfully since 1983. A good accountable candidate knocks on doors and talks to people. They discover the local issues and then formulate public responses. We know what they stand for and they are proud to tell us - loud and often.
I can tell you, from hard experience, that if any candidate wants to knock on doors and canvass all the thirty-odd polls you will need to spend three hours every day from Labour Day to Election Day. That's a lot of work, and as far as I am concerned it should be mandatory for all candidates. Firstly it shows commitment to the cause and secondly we the voters get a chance to see the candidate. That it is why it is so important for candidates to declare early - we want to see them.
So the non-appearance of candidates for election is big news. What can the reasons be? I think I know some o the answers. First of all the job of being a local councilor has become a bureaucratic exercise of passing resolutions to make the Town run efficiently. Staff work has to be legislated and the councilors spend much time on rubber-stamping staff work. If you ask one question of the incumbents this year ask this one, "What program have you shepherded through council that was your idea, and only your idea?" Don't hold your breath waiting for an answer. Secondly the fact is that the job is part-time but in most cases the part-time needed to do the job is a lot of time. Most potential candidates see the amount of time spent by incumbents and say "Great pastime but I don't have the time". The time has come for a real evaluation of a councilor's duties and then to do one of two things. Either have more councilors and split the workload (then you can pay them peanuts) or reduce the number and pay them to do the job full time. The idea of having a full time Mayor and part-time councilors does nothing to alleviate the workload and everything to build resentment at the salary difference. But this is a process thing.
The real reason that we do not see people lining up to govern us is that a steady drone about the non-worth of a politician has convinced most people that public service is a mug's game. When was the last time you saw positive stories about politicians in the "right-wing press". We are governed by a provincial government that considers itself "not to be government". Traditional government, a good force working for the greater good, has been reduced, by the constant writings and commentaries that have manipulated public opinion, to a totally spineless collection of councilors, MPs and MPPs pandering to needs of the people who now hate government. In other words being in government is not worth the criticism they take.
Of course it hasn't helped that the majority of people in local government are totally without local vision and when asked to vote on something new usually the first response is "Will this create a precedent?" We need visionaries, not managers. Are there any out there? If so step forward and be elected.
The voters are being cheated