The 2017 91原创 Township municipal election campaign is underway 鈥� with just under 11 months to go until voting day.
This makes the 2015 federal election campaign, which lasted over three months and was the longest in generations, look positively brief.
It is true that the campaign period has not officially started. That doesn鈥檛 actually begin until just after Labour Day, on Sept. 4, 2018. Voting day has been moved up a month, and will take place on Oct. 20.
However, the race for mayor is underway in earnest, as longtime Councillor Kim Richter has announced she is running for mayor. In response, incumbent Mayor Jack Froese has said he will be seeking re-election.
This makes it almost certain that it will be a long, hard-fought election campaign. There is one significant new factor. The province has basically banned business and big money donations from municipal election campaigns 鈥� so mounting this campaign will be very different from the past. This may indeed have been a major reason for Richter鈥檚 early announcement.
91原创 Township politics has been very different from most other large municipalities in the Metro Vancouver area. Slates are deeply unpopular with many voters, and running as part of a slate seems to lose votes for candidates.
This aversion to slates is a reaction to the 91原创 Leadership Team, which won four of seven council seats and five school board seats in 1996. The LLT spent a lot of money on its campaign and many of its donors were never disclosed 鈥� hidden behind loopholes in campaign finance legislation.
In 1999, the LLT was reduced to two council seats, despite a very expensive campaign, and LLT mayor John Scholtens lost to Kurt Alberts, in a four-way battle for the top post. Richter won her first election as part of a very loose and poorly-financed slate known as 91原创 Citizens Coalition that broke up soon after the campaign. She may have been pushed over the finish line by LLT signs which associated her with the NDP. That extra exposure seemed to help.
While the LLT ran a slate again in 2002, it got nowhere, losing its two council seats.
The only real attempt at a slate since then was in 2011, when incumbent mayor Rick Green recruited several other candidates and formed the Vote 91原创 Now slate. None of the VLN candidates, including Green, were elected.
Thus since 1999, independent candidates have had the most success. Overall, this has been to the Township鈥檚 benefit. Many successful candidates are philosophically similar and were financed by the same donors. Most of the successful candidates have received significant donations from developers and/or the Township of 91原创 firefighters union, but there have been significant exceptions to that. Name recognition is still very important.
Richter will need to seek out a lot of small donations, and an early start is critical to that. She received donations from developers in past campaigns. Froese, who ran sophisticated campaigns in both 2011 and 2014 with substantial donations from developers and others in the business community, will also need to seek out far more individual donations.
Richter made a lot of noise about conflict of interest, in relation to members of council being able to have their businesses bid on Township contracts, when announcing her candidacy. While this is an important issue, it seems to me that it may not have the traction to be dominant over 11 months.
Issues such as the Brookswood-Fernridge community plan (a key factor in the 2014 campaign), Fort 91原创 development, clear-cutting of Agricultural Land Reserve land in an upland area of Willoughby and general ALR concerns, and growth in general are more likely to be issues which resonate with voters.
Froese is sure to have like-minded people running alongside him 鈥� albeit not as part of a formal slate. Richter will have to do significant recruiting if she wishes to ensure that she has some like-minded people seeking council seats. A formal slate is unlikely.
There will be much to pay attention to in this lengthy campaign.
Frank Bucholtz is a retired editor. He writes monthly for the 91原创 Times, as well as sharing his insights on his Frankly Speaking blog. It can found at frankbucholtz.blogspot.ca.
