Sunday, November 13, 2011

Trade Unions And Nanaimo Elections


CUPE and IAFF
Support Civic Election Candidates

Recently a group of citizens calling themselves the Concerned Citizens of Nanaimo got themselves into a mild tempest as they had not registered as a Campaign Organization after endorsing candidates in the upcoming Nanaimo Municpal Elections. They are a group that seem only concerned about the low barrier housing project on Uplands Drive.

The idea that a group of people can start supporting certain candidates and using funds to pay for advertising campaigns to get their favourites elected is a bit of a sticky wicket to say the least. I personally have never been fond of the idea of 'Election by Full Page Ad', I much prefer the process where the trusted fourth estate does it's job and identifies issues and gives sufficient coverage to each candidate, that the public can come to an informed conclusion based on unbiased information. Sadly the general public seems unwilling to put forth the effort it takes to become informed, which could be the result of a complete failure of the fourth estate to do it's part in society. When you have career 'journalists' who are more interested in promoting themselves than genuinely serving the community by exposing the truth, and newspapers, radio and television driven by their bottom line more than being the true fourth estate, you have what we have today.

Newspapers will gladly sell you pages and pages of advertising supporting a candidate or slate of candidates with no regard for what is said in the advertisement. At best they will field a few softball questions and publish the candidates answers and basically serve up lukewarm baby food, which seems to be all the public has stomach for.

The Role Of Unions In Nanaimo Politics

All candidates must disclose the source of funds they receive during an election campaign, however, that disclosure does not have to be made until after the election. If you are a bit of a skeptic like I am, I would prefer to know who is financially supporting a candidate BEFORE I make my voting decision. After all, if real estate speculators are throwing bags of money at a certain candidates campaign, I have to pretty much guess they are looking for support down the road.

The same can be said for labour union support of their chosen candidates as well. I presume they are spending considerable sums of money expecting their candidates will look upon them favourably down the road. Perhaps, say, when it comes to approving a better wage and benefit package come next contract time.

Since disclosure of union support in the 2011 Civic Election is not made until after the fact, the only clue I have as to which candidates may have the 'union nod' is to look at the last election to see which candidates received union support. The following information comes from the city of Nanaimo website.

Ted Greves, 2011 Byelection $6500.00 from CUPE, FIREPAC and IAFF

Diane Brennan, 2008 Civic Election $10,000.00 from BCGEU, CUPE and FIREPAK

Bill Bestwick, 2008 Civic Election $4250.00 CUPE, IAFF

Gord Fuller, 2008 Civic Election $1500.00 CUPE

If you would like to see who supported candidates in the 2008 civic election and how much each candidate spent on their campaign visit the City of Nanaimo Website HERE.

I would like to see ALL candidates restricted to no more than $1000.00 in advertising during a civic election. That would include signage, print ads, flyers, websites etc. This would level the playing field giving all candidates an even shot at getting your attention, and they would have to get that attention based their own merits and not how slick their ad campaign happens to be. Of course for that approach to succeed would require more involvement on the part of all citizens in Nanaimo and given past voter turnout that could prove challenging.

allvoices

3 comments:

  1. It would be interesting to know what businesses or organizations are backing individual candidates.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I trust that you will also be posting real estate/developer/builder contributions to candidates in the last election. There is almost no grass roots money in Nanaimo civic elections.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anyone wishing to see all sources of donations last election should use the link in this article leading to the city website.

    ReplyDelete

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