Of course it’s disappointing, but not surprising, since I didn’t find time to knock on nearly enough doors, don’t buy any advertising, and didn’t create enough content for social media. October is always a busy time of year for my job, I was hustling to get on the ballot for the October 24 provincial election and represent the BCLP, and I had a hand surgery done on October 6 that also slowed me down.
A sincere thank you goes out to the thousands who voted for me. To be one of your five votes for school trustee definitely means a lot to me. I appreciated some people reaching out to me to say that they read my platform and said it resonated with them. It definitely makes me want to keep doing this, and work on finding more resources to get my message out to future voters. There is a better way, and we can build it together.
There are two things that stood out to me after this election:
1.
Apparently, Langley does like slates after all. In the township of Langley, where I ran, the two elector groups Langley Strong and Progress For Langley finished in the top 10 and the five independent candidates, including myself, finished in the bottom five. The same can be said for the council race, almost, in that only one independent finished slightly higher than the council candidates with a slate. In fact, one of the best candidates for council was an independent who had a large social media presence but finished fourth last in the race. In Langley City, the one Trustee candidate on a slate was re-elected, and in the City’s council race the 5 independents running for council finished at the back-end of 16.
We have heard in newspaper editorials, Letters to the Editor, community blogs, and social media comment threads pages for years that Langley voters despise electoral groups, AKA slates. But these election results suggest otherwise. With the current rules regarding campaign financing, it is likely that this trend will only continue to grow and make running as an independent even more difficult. More electoral groups will sprout up to cover the diversity of political views in Langley.
2.
Across the river, Maple Ridge had three questions on their civic ballot for approval to fund the construction or expansion of various recreational facilities. All three failed – two of them by a 3 to 1 margin, and the other was an arena expansion, rejected more narrowly.
What this tells me is that the politicians in that jurisdiction are hesitant to take on more debt or raising taxes to fund facilities that may not be in the best interest of their voters and tax base. By formally asking for public opinion in this manner, it absolves them of potentially making a decision that may be controversial or disappointing to some interest groups. The biggest reason the Township of Langley saw a change in ToL’s leadership is because the outgoing Mayor led a steady stream of indebtment that rivaled the biggest cities in the country. While the new hockey arena is very pretty and the soccer campus will be quite grand once completed, no one bothered to ask if we needed them to be so glamorous. This city is now in debt more per capita than most cities in North America https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1C6HrcdhZb/ and all we have to show for it is soccer fields and hockey rinks?
