EDITORIAL: Sooke all candidates event surfaces issues of civic process

Friday, October 12 ~ SOOKE. For anyone who doesn’t live in or know Sooke, they may not be aware of how intense the political waves become on the ground during election season.

Naturally every candidate and their team will be doing their utmost to win at the polls. That takes a lot of grunt work from the initial planning stages then door knocking, setting up signage, distributing marketing materials, and helping voters get to the voting stations. For many it is a labour of community service but it also the substrate for how the community will interact and unfold over the next four years.

In that context, a meeting where all the candidates come together in goodwill to interface with the public in order to present their campaign platforms is a civic event. Judging by the number of ‘new faces’ in the crowd last night at the Sooke municipal all-candidates meeting at the Prestige hotel, it was evident that the town is growing (new arrivals, many seeking relatively affordable housing) and that there was an old-fashioned expectation that an even playing field would be the basis of the evening so that platforms from all candidates could be heard.

However, the room was also heavily loaded with supporters for one particular candidate or group of candidates. Fair enough, good politicking. But the local chamber organizers should have held the process in higher regard. To have a button or marketing material from one candidate foisted upon every person who entered the venue was simply poor form, and disrespectful to the elegance that such public meetings have had in days by gone.

Clearly, a welcome from a chamber member at the door, then candidate information tables or campaign workers beyond that point would have been more appropriate. One hopes in what remains of a civic democratic process in Canada, that it is not okay for one team or campaign to overtake the basic structure of the event.

Judging by the buzz around Sooke and region all day Friday it was a highly charged event for many. This editor has attended many an all candidate meeting over the years. No one meeting has had such a complex and discomforting feeling as the October 11 All Candidates of Sooke, 2018.

And while the Chamber said they were grateful for the donation of one sponsor to pay for the entire venue expenses of the evening (and giving that one sponsor centre stage for his views, and essentially boasting — in a humble way — about how that happened), they even stated at the podium that they didn’t even try to find other sponsors. Others may have wanted to show their support but the Chamber openly stated that the opportunity was forfeited if not denied.

In general, chambers of commerce are pro-business and not by instinct highly attuned to politics. When they blend the mechanics of those two worlds, it usually doesn’t succeed too well. Seen time and time again.

Sooke is a growing community — the 2nd-fastest growing municipality on Vancouver Island we hear. The province’s Premier finds Sooke within his home riding. A greater sense of dignity or sophistication for the political process is called for in Sooke. Plain and simple.

And was there a successful sense of discretion applied over the Chamber moderator accepting and reading out a question challenging two of the candidates (Rick Kasper and Doni Eve) for being married to each other? When the question was asked there was an audible and palpable wave of discomfort throughout the room of 300+ people. It was a singularly bad-ass moment in Sooke political history, and not one to be proud of.

Kasper and Eve handled their responses with aplomb (as one would expect from political and communications professionals, respectively). But while in a local political context it was sadly probably ‘necessary’ to clear the public air, it only demonstrates how Sooke needs to come in terms of playing politics in the modern world.

People who have similar interests in life will often find themselves in the same profession or community realm of activity. Discriminating against people (as to what they can participate in) in such a circumstance is no different than gender or racial bias. That might seem like a stretch, but it takes us into the next realm of how society excludes some people from the rights that others (including LGBT and various visible minorities) have achieved over recent years. Eradicating discrimination because of emotional relationship is the next great frontier (you heard it here first).

As for the candidates themselves, thankfully — as one would hope and expect — they ‘get’ the sanctity of their role and what they are hoping to do if elected. The discourse at the table during the presentations by 13 candidates for council on Thursday evening was professional and genuinely friendly. Kudos on that group as a whole.

The three mayoral candidates were professional, but somehow the mood of that second portion of the evening fell a bit flat. Physical setup of a venue has a lot to do with the outcomes of a debate. You could have driven a pickup truck through the space between the candidates. Even for something like getting a good photo of all three candidates together ‘in the action moment’ was made impossible by that setup.

On a parallel note, the availability and structure of forums for school board trustees has been meager to nothing in this 2018 campaign season. See our October 5th editorial on the importance of school board trustees and how for the 2022 cycle that voters will likely be hoping for better.

As media guru Marshall McLuhan put it decades ago: “The medium is the message.” The format and procedural choices of delivering these civic events has a lot to do with the success of not only the meeting itself but the impact on voters and in turn the impact on the community for years afterward.

And to quote another great mind on the matter of media, Shakespeare himself penned “don’t shoot the messenger”. In that context we say that the audience (including supporters of one the candidate) found the style of delivery of the incumbent mayoral candidate to be odd and discomforting, some sort of practiced theatrical mode that was also seen a bit at the October 3 all candidates forum hosted by Transition Sooke, but taken to a whole new level last night. Something about it really didn’t sit right, even for some of her supporters.

Allowing no time for questions live from the audience last night is a theme that seems to be trending at many All Candidates meetings this election cycle. A notable exception was the debate in Otter Point on September 30 where the Otter Point, Shirley and Jordan River Residents Association (OPSRRA) moderator ran a good old-fashioned interface between the audience and the candidates.

The good news in all this is that people still care about their politics. If nothing else, the hubbub about the palpable strife coming out of the October 11, 2018 chamber-hosted Sooke municipal all candidates meeting is an indicator that people realize the essential need to pay attention to who makes decisions on our behalf as citizens of a town.

It could also be a positive sign that the stresses of a rapidly growing community are acknowledged with a sense of appropriate urgency. Sooke is maxed out for resources on many levels including tax dollars for things like emergency preparedness (particularly earthquake and tsunami for the region, although Tait intensely emphasized fire as a natural hazard including in a post-earthquake scenario), as well as relying far too heavily on an aging volunteer support base in the community, and simply burdened by a lack of full-spectrum infrastructure like youth/senior centre, sidewalks, and medical services.

As a footnote, the West Shore Voice News publication (formerly Sooke Voice News, and MapleLine Magazine before that) got its start in Sooke over 10 years ago due to this very angst of community growth being a buzzing bee in the bonnet of the local population. Something intangibly alive will always dwell in seaside forested Sooke (home of the T’Sou-ke Nation) — it’s one of the special inexplicable things that draws people there and holds them there against most odds.

The rest of BC could learn from Sooke’s growing pains by recognizing that when a community is at a critical crossroads of growth, those next steps must be carefully taken. The biggest of those steps is choosing the right leaders.

Here’s your list at the ballot box in Sooke for October 20: For Mayor: Kevin Pearson (2-term councillor), Mick Rhodes, and Maja Tait (incumbent). For six councillor seats: Rick Armour, Jeff Bateman, Al Beddows, Doni Eve, Herb Haldane, Peter Jonassen, Rick Kasper, Ebony Logins, Megan McMath, Brenda Parkinson, Phil Rossner, Tony St-Pierre, and Jeff Stewart.

In the view of this editor, in particular two of the council candidates stood out for their synthesized vision of how to move Sooke forward in these challenging times. Jeff Bateman who has been an integral organizer with the Transition Sooke (and Zero Waste Sooke) movement and also Tony St-Pierre who has university qualifications in things having to do with urban planning (and runs his own food-crop farm) are upward stars to watch.

The most significant governance differential between mayoral candidates Tait and Pearson that evening was their belief about the balance between how much political work a mayor does beyond their community (at the regional and provincial level) compared to directing ones efforts to management of the local realm. ‘Charity begins at home’, is an old saying with merit.

Tait is 1st Vice-President of the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) and (by virtue of being mayor) has participated at the Capital Regional District (CRD) board table. She also is one of two west shore representatives on the CRD’s Transportation Committee (Colwood’s mayor also has a seat, but not Langford). Pearson has served on the CRD’s Juan de Fuca Water Distribution Commission which deals with a most important resource to communities of the region. He spearheaded Sooke-area initiatives for salmon protection, up to the UBCM level.

Note, there is Advance Voting on October 17. Many people don’t realize that if you vote in advance, the scrutineers (representatives for candidates) are given access to the records of who has voted. Then they hone their list of who to go after for the final General Voting Day. While Advance Voting is convenient and sometimes necessary for people with busy lives, it does give a peek at the cards for those who know how to work the system.

[The event was videotaped by the event organizers. We will post the link here, when available.]

~ MPB