A commentary by a resident of North Saanich.
It would appear that the District of North Saanich has a new civic party registered with Elections B.C.
Most municipal elections in British Columbia are contested by independents. Members of the community seek office on their own merit.
The exception is the large communities in the Lower Mainland that have developed party machinery, resulting in block voting and a loss of independent thinking.
This is not the first time North Saanich has had an electoral machine. A group called Team North Saanich emerged to contest the 2011 local elections, successfully backing a conservative-leaning majority of local councillors.
The organization unravelled during the 2014 general local election. Four of their five slate candidates were defeated, leaving only one member elected to council.
In the 2022 municipal election, a registered third-party sponsor group, Save North Saanich, managed to elect all but one of their endorsed candidates, resulting in a dysfunctional council. Partisan politics has not served this community well.
In a 2024 article about Saskatoon, the Centre for Policy Alternatives describes it this way: “Since the municipal Reform movement of the early 20th century, the public, politicians, and academics have overwhelmingly talked about municipal politics as something that is uncontroversial and fundamentally not about partisan division.
“Instead, we like to imagine municipal policy-making as a technocratic exercise based around competent management of city services. As the saying goes, there’s no liberal or conservative way to fill a pothole.”
The issue in North Saanich seems to be preservation of our rural landscape, described as development versus no development.
But this appears to be a red herring, as virtually everyone I have spoken to wants to preserve our special relationship with agriculture, nature and our rural character while acknowledging more housing is necessary.
Rather, the issue seems to be no-growth versus smart growth. Anger versus rational debate. Not in my backyard versus development in select areas already zoned for development.
We have seen similar arguments in other wealthy enclaves like West Vancouver, Anmore and the Shaughnessy neighbourhood in Vancouver: angry, wealthy landowners not wanting any changes in their communities.
In Vancouver, one resident referred to themselves as the “crème de la crème” when opposing the idea of having rapid transit at the periphery of their neighbourhood.
Change and growth are inevitable. How that change and growth are managed is not. Anger and exclusionary tactics won’t preserve our agricultural base and natural beauty. As we have seen, this approach has simply brought the interference of the provincial government to a dysfunctional municipal council.
Choosing seven independent individuals shouldn’t be an onerous task. We need folks who will listen to the public, to each other, and to the professional staff, and then make rational decisions. We don’t need puppet-masters pulling strings behind the scenes.
In the next election, we might be faced with the choice of rational debate or anger. Inclusion or exclusion. Smart growth or imposed growth.
Let’s keep the anger and NIMBY-ism out of our public debate. Let’s keep rational independent candidates on our municipal council. Political parties, slates and block voting have no place in our municipal politics.
original article can be found here:
