With the 2014 municipal elections are less than two months away, there are already several declared candidates for Prince George city council and two declared candidates for mayor. On Nov. 15, Prince George residents will choose eight councillors and one mayor to form their local government for the next four years.
Unlike federal or provincial elections, or municipal elections in Greater Vancouver, candidates for mayor and councillor in Prince George all run as independents, rather than as the chosen representatives of a political party. While many local candidates will certainly have connections to provincial and national political parties, they do not seek office under the flag of those parties.
Another difference in municipal elections, compared to federal or provincial votes, is that Prince George residents choose by ballot who the mayor will be. Christy Clark and Stephen Harper were chosen by their parties to be their leaders, rather than by the voters. Furthermore, the mayor and councillors are elected as representatives for all of Prince George, instead of running in specific neighbourhoods within the city and representing the citizens of those areas, as MLAs and MPs do.
There are other ways of choosing elected leaders in Canada but we have to look further north to see them in action.
Both the government of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are formed by a consensus system. Like Prince George's municipal elections, there are no political parties and all candidates run in their region as independents. After the election, the members of the assembly (including my childhood chum Robert Bouchard, the MLA for Hay River North) gather and choose a speaker, the premier and the cabinet, and they all have to be chosen by majority secret vote, meaning it can take multiple ballots to decide. If this method sounds familiar, the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church choose a new pope from among their membership in the exact same way.
The remaining members of the NWT and Nunavut legislatures, including Bouchard, act as the unofficial opposition to the premier and cabinet, holding them accountable and questioning their decisions. Most importantly, the regular members outnumber the premier and cabinet, meaning the premier and cabinet are dependent on the support of the regular members for laws and bills to pass.
This does bear some similarities to the municipal system in Prince George. While the mayor has a full-time role at City Hall, at the council table, the mayor's vote is simply one of nine. That means the majority of council is free is to vote against the mayor as often as it likes and the mayor has no outlet to punish them, unlike in the political party system. Furthermore, the mayor usually only votes to break a tie or to register a dissenting vote.
While the consensus system still has flaws (like not having voters choose themselves who will be premier), its checks and balances don't allow the concentration of power in the hands of the premier and cabinet that we currently see in Victoria and Ottawa or even what the mayor of Prince George enjoys at city hall.
It's important for voters to know not just who the candidates are and what they represent but also what degree of power they will wield and to what degree they will have to work with others at the table to get things done.
