The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
The Manitoba government has no plans to alter legislation that disenfranchised half of Flin Flon in the last school board election. The Flin Flon School Board recently asked the province to allow citizens to elect their trustees at large rather than through a ward voting system, which requires that communities be split into at least two voting districts. "Overall, the ward-based system has proved to be very effective and efficient thus far," wrote Education Minister Peter Bjornson in a letter to the board, "and as such the government has no plans to amend The Public Schools Act at this time in order to accommodate your board's request." Bjornson wrote that the ward-based system provides greater "responsive representation" in larger school divisions but acknowledged "this may not seem to be overly important" in smaller communities like Flin Flon. "... we will certainly revisit the issue from time to time as we undertake our annual legislative review process," the minister concluded. The ward system left Flin Flon split into two wards for the 2002 board election, with three candidates to be elected from one ward and four from the other. When only four candidates ran in the latter ward, all were acclaimed to the board without voter input. Had one less candidate ran in the other ward (four people vied for three positions), the entire 2002-2006 school board would have been acclaimed. At previous board meetings, trustees have several times stated their opposition to the system. "All I could see was confusion with this whole situation in a community the size of Flin Flon," said Trustee Gordon Mitchell. "All (the system) did to us was confuse things and I didn't think it was appropriate at all. It's not necessary here." "I know there were an awful lot of angry electorates who felt they didn't have the opportunity to vote the best persons in," said Trustee Angela Simpson. Added Trustee Jim Wilson: "There were a number of comments, particularly from people in Ward 2, who realized they had lost the right to vote and didn't like it."
