Municipal election season is not under way yet, at least not officially. But the buzz around who will run, and who will not, is certainly getting louder.
Over the summer, several residents have indicated their intention to make a go for councillor or mayoral seats, and suddenly this week, we have two new names to consider for the position of MRC Pontiac warden.
Election season, especially municipal election season, should be cherished as a window for dreaming.
While the years between elections are largely dominated by conversations about replacing town water systems, or shifting to new waste management practices, or awarding snow-clearing contracts – all critical work to helping a community thrive – municipal election season offers itself as a brief window in which we are all asked to think beyond the challenges of the day-to-day grunt work required to run a municipality, or a county, to imagine what we would like to become, together.
This is true for both those making these decisions, and the rest of us, soon to be tasked with considering who we believe to be best suited to be doing this imagining on our behalf.
This task demands that we pull our heads out of the sand that is our own day-to-day hamster wheel of life. We are on the hook, as residents of these municipalities, to take the time to think about what needs to happen for our communities to thrive, and to vote for people we believe can accomplish this.
There will no doubt be attempts to seduce voters with promises of keeping taxes low, but this is low hanging fruit. Yes, we would all like to hold onto a little more of our hard-earned money. But this is too easy a song to sing.
If we were to give those vying to represent us more of our money, how would they use it to support us? What is their vision for how we could thrive? And what is our vision for how we could thrive? This is equally an important question. This collective imagining is key, in particular, the collective piece of it.
Municipal elections are not the time for slinging insults from behind a keyboard, or god forbid, abstaining from voting. They are a time to brainstorm and to implicate ourselves in building the future of this region.
Here, casting our vote will make a difference. In the 2021 municipal elections, voter turnout across the region hovered around the 50 per cent mark, with several municipalities drawing well above, and others well below, that number. We can do better.
November’s election will come soon. As neighbours, friends, family members, and colleagues start putting their names forward for various races, we shouldn’t forget to ask them about their dream for this region.
Sophie Kuijper Dickson
