Flin Flonners who bemoan our low voter turnout now have another development to lament: low candidate turnout.
Just seven men and women will be on the ballot to fill six seats on city council in next month’s civic election. Voters will not so much choose the council they want as the single candidate they don’t want.
Things are worse for the school board, where all seven candidates will be acclaimed to form the new assembly of trustees. Between acclamations and the now-defunct ward voting system, Flin Flon has not had a community-wide school board election since at least the 1990s.
Obviously the school board has long encountered difficulties in attracting candidates, likely in part because control freaks at the provincial government leave local trustees relatively little autonomy.
But this business of just barely needing an election is new territory for city council. So what’s going on?
We may well be witnessing the unfortunate trend of declining civic involvement – already so familiar to volunteer organizations across Flin Flon – spreading to municipal politics.
Yes, councillors are paid servants, but not extravagantly so. A decision to run for council still requires a healthy dose of commitment to community. It still requires a yearning to do something fewer and fewer of us want to do: get involved.
Another factor at play may be the broad and growing reluctance of people to get involved in politics at all levels for fear it will yield them legions of newfound enemies.
Hot seat
There’s no doubt that Flin Flon city councillors are very much in the hot seat today. Part of the reason is that they have deliberately waded into highly contentious waters; part of it is because people complain louder than ever before about things of both little and great import.
I know business owners who have thought about running for council. What stops them is a fear that joining a decision-making body like council, which will never please everyone, is bad for their bottom line. I honestly don’t know if they’re being overly cautious
or not.
As for voters themselves, they haven’t been enthusiastic about civic elections in years. The 2010 election brought out only 45 per cent of eligible ballot-casters; in 2006, turnout was an even-more dismal 35 per cent.
Evidently most residents fail to see a connection between their lives and the goings-on at city hall. And just as provincial and national voters recognize there is little difference between the major parties, perhaps Flin Flonners have arrived at the same conclusion about the choices they have been offered for council.
So how does this road unwind? What happens if in the coming years Flin Flon is unable to produce enough candidates to fill council? What if no one wants the job?
If such a trend takes hold, we can expect the emergence of some sort of alternative governance structure. I’m not sure what it would look like, or even who would implement it.
Frankly, I hope I never find out. We already have the best system there is for determining who represents us. We as a community – as candidates, as voters – just need to get out there and utilize it.
Local Angle runs Fridays.
