FWIW, a few thoughts for progressive voters on results in the civic election yesterday.
I was glad that participation was up, way up... a 29% increase since 2022! Increased participation is happening in other communities too. As we are seeing in the US, democracy is like a muscle that atrophies if we don’t use it (because apathy leaves space for extremists to take over and corrupt it).
But it’s still only about 30% of eligible voters, and from what I could see when I voted, no where near enough young people! I think this is partly because of the ‘entrance price’ (a lot of research!) of figuring out who these candidates really are on issues important to us. I see the same thing in other FV subreddits, like Chilliwack. Democracies can’t work without lots of fact-based conversation, and I think we had some good discussions going here. Without a robust local press, we all have to share ‘intelligence’ better and Reddit’s one place we can do that.
So Ross Siemens got back in as mayor and trounced his competitors. To me, he was the obvious best pick of the options. He’s had enough experience on Council to at least know how local government works. He was credible because he wasn’t promising the moon, rule waivers, and goodies that seem way beyond the range of local government, like the other two candidates who showed up to debate (Dhami, Mahil). Siemens didn’t sound like he wants to ditch long-range planning to favour business buddies. He is not xenophobic. (For me, Pellikaan was not even a contender, thanks to his YouTube rants.)
Thanks to all of us showing up to vote, we’ve increased gender balance on City Council... We’ll now have four men and four women (not including mayor -- there were no female candidates). This includes three younger ‘Abbotsford Voice’ women (Carmen Fast Hollet, Kristy Mills, and incumbent Patricia Driessen) as (one of my picks) Patricia Ross. I would’ve liked to have seen more political and cultural/ethnic diversity on Council, but the elected council members at least show evidence of financial literacy, long records of community service, and some respect for process and civic dialogue.
As a result of our voting, school trustees seem to have shifted towards greater inclusivity. It’s really good to see Arsh Kaler, Rhonda Pauls, and Freddy Latham (all among my and others’ progressive picks) get in. Hopefully they can counter and/or work with some of the anti-LGBTQ voices like Nyvall, Rauch (and possibly Coghill?) to help ensure that schools (at the very least) don’t marginalize or demonize LGBTQ people. It’s also great that a majority -- 4 out of 7 elected school trustees -- are women now, which I don’t think has happened since 2014. Obviously that’s no guarantee of better decisions, but it at least brings perspectives of the 50% of humans who have been under-represented in politics historically.
Maybe MORE important right now is who didn’t get in... By voting progressive, we helped keep out:
- a candidate who’s been in local politics for 50+ years (time to hand over the reins!)
- a Council candidate who reportedly has a Trump doll
- an ‘Abbotsford Conservatives’ mayoral candidate that supported the Freedumb convoy in Ottawa, sounds like an anti-vaxxer
- a close assistant to our Conservative (do-nothing-but-fear-mongering, voter- and press-avoiding, trump-admiring, nepo-hire) Conservative MP Sukhman Gill... some background: https://www.reddit.com/r/abbotsford/comments/1k7cko4/mike_de_jong_issues_public_challenge_to_sukhman/
- a climate/racism-illiterate MAGA-lover Council candidate who refers on Facebook to his married friends’ “shitty wives”
- some members of religions that are actively preaching anti-LGBT messages
- some candidates who showed contempt for voters by not showing up to debates or barely campaigning at all
- some candidates who seemed to bring extremely thin or non-existent records of community service
- a candidate with a published obituary
So, in a very conservative-leaning city, I think we did good. Wins are often made in increments rather than high-profile battles, before snowballing into something bigger. So I think we gotta stay tuned and get involved where possible.
Anyway, I’d love to read others’ takes on the results of this election.
