SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Nonpartisan Hacks, the podcast about good government from the local level on up. I'm Sean Wood, freshly re-elected Parksville counselor.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

And I'm Joel Kranz, a former Parksville counselor, although technically still a counselor for another few hours, and recent mayoral candidate.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

As always, the views we express here are our own and don't represent the city of Parksville or any other governing body.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Today it's just the two of us. Two elections a week apart, one mayoral race that both of us planned to run in, and only one of us did. And a non-partisan hack's take on the past weeks of elections. This is our first recording since the elections have happened. Sean, I guess maybe, you know, I think the the lead here, right? Sure. For months you've been saying that you're running for mayor Parksville, and then you ended up not running for mayor Parksville. And surprise, uh, just as we planned it months in advance to do a switcheroo, a bait and switch.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

The the joke there that Joel is referencing is that it was not planned at all like that. And yes, I had announced quite early. And the reason I had announced early is because uh I was quite sure that I can bring a better leadership style to the city of Parksville than the one that I was working with uh for the past term. And so I purposefully announced very, very early, uh, June of 2025. Um so that for a bunch of reasons, but uh in a respectful way. Totally respectful. I took our mayor out to lunch and explained that I I was intending to run for uh mayoral position, et cetera, et cetera. Um, and that I wanted to take the high road on everything and have a really respectful campaign. And he said, great, I'm I'm uh I'm planning to run as well. Um and then I was at home in July uh in Aurelia, Ontario, and an email came through where the mayor had uh let everybody know that he has chosen to not run for re-election. And so, you know, looking back, um that was a pretty big uh goal of of mine is to bring a slightly better leadership style to the city of Parksville. And so that changed everything. And then for a couple of months, I was uh aiming to be acclaimed because there were no other uh announcements of anyone else running. Aiming for an acclaiming. And then uh counselor Mary Beale, who is a two-term counselor, uh she had mentioned to me that she wasn't planning on running uh for mayor um earlier in the year. And then uh when I got uh back to Parksville for Marillia, uh had another coffee with Mary, and I've had many, many coffees with Mary over the past four years and gotten to know her and quite like her.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Uh this is part of the reason you become more into coffee, Mr.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

I don't think you drank a lot of coffee before this turn. Three coffees is bad, two coffees is okay, one coffee is good. That's where I am at right now with the formula. Um, but Mary had mentioned to me when I got back from Aurelia that she has uh spoken to a lot of people, and a lot of people have asked her to run for mayor, and so she has decided to run for mayor. And I said, Oh, okay, well, thank you for letting me know. Um, and then, you know, I had I had some time to think about it because it for me, I didn't want to be someone who, yay, I beat, you know, Mary Beale, a person who I have a lot of respect for, and is well liked in the community and is also a different style of leadership than we have had over the past four years. Um and I would really have rather seen both of us at the table. And if we're both running for mayor, uh, then there will only be one of us at the table. And I decided to step aside so that she can have a clearer run without me in the way. Um and and that's how it turned out. And then I'll pass it over uh to Joel because he hadn't announced for counselor or that he's not running or anything else. And um, and then that came down to the week of the nomination period, I believe, Joel.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Yeah, well, so similar to you when I got the news of the change in uh mayor decisions. Uh I was uh with family on vacation in the interior and uh camping. We didn't have the best internet. And uh yeah, I heard about the um switch where where Mary, who was not going to run, decided to run, and then you were deciding not to run. And I think I got a news release uh about that. So yeah, you got a news release when you're in Aurelia uh in Ontario. I got one on it when I was in uh in the interior of BC. Uh and so that was those were two consequential news releases, I guess, in terms of the decision making around uh who would run for mayor. Because yeah, it was not my plan to run for mayor. Uh and uh maybe similar to you, I guess, is that you weren't necessarily out there to say, oh, I want to be mayor, like my life goal is to be mayor. Uh, but you felt like there was something you could bring as mayor. Uh I was actually looking very much forward to uh you uh being mayor, because I know what you would bring. Uh and the those are similar things I think that we both could potentially bring to that role. We've both done a lot of uh extracurricular work uh in our roles on council. For example, um you were, I believe, the first Parksville counselor to ever be on an FCM committee, so Federation of Can Canadian Municipalities Committee. And then I was the second Parksville counselor to be on uh and so each of us were on two different FCM committees UBCM board during our term. You were on UBCM board, I was not. Um we both, I mean, this podcast is an example of the extra effort that we've gone to to try to learn about local government, try to build relationships and try to educate the public as well as to what we're learning and what really happens at local government and the interface between local and provincial federal government. So both of us have done a lot of work to uh educate ourselves, educate the public, uh, which would have prepared either of us, I think, very well for being mayor. Uh communication is a key part of being mayor and speaking, you you speak uh within the council. There's a lot of communication that you need to be the leader on, but also uh to the community uh generally. So the the Parksville electorate, the Parksville community. But also beyond that, regionally and provincially, and potentially even nationally, uh, for certain issues where there's a strong uh you need to have a strong understanding of the interface between the different issues. You need to be able to communicate effectively. These are all things that we'd both been working on. So when I saw that you weren't running for mayor anymore, and uh I was kind of counting on one of the podcast hosts from nonpartisan hacks being on the ballot for mayor, I thought it was gonna be you. And so I decided pretty last minute that I would put my papers in for mayor instead of for council. Uh, I was kind of uh waiting. Uh you probably noticed that's what you said. I did. I did mention, I think, on one episode as well. Like, what are you running? I did. Um, so yeah, I didn't have a uh yeah, I didn't decide until pretty much the last minute to run for mayor. I'm glad I did, though. It was a really great experience running for mayor. Um, it gave me a lot of um a lot of insight into the community running for mayor, both in terms of my own thinking on what the role would look like if I were to be in that role, what I would want to do with that role. Uh I did uh spend many nights when I should have been sleeping thinking about those things, um, which I wouldn't have done if I had run for just council. Yep. Uh and one thing on the council, a lot of people rightly recognize if you run for mayor, it's a it's a bigger risk to run for mayor versus council because there are six council seats in Parksville. There are only 10 people running for those council seats, uh, and there are three people running for mayor for one spot.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

So uh, you know, I listening to you, Joel, a lot of it comes down to advocacy and communication from the role of mayor or council or whatever. And I think you and I have done quite a good job in the last four years of being elected uh on the advocacy fronts, which is UBCM, FCM, ABICC, our podcast, um, and communication, which is all of those things as well. Yeah. And also in a nonpartisan way. And I think that is key to every voter out there, actually, even if they consider themselves to be orange or blue or red or green or whatever, uh, politically, nonpartisan actually, I feel lands better with people because they expect those parties to work together, just like you would a corporate board, to, you know, do well for the company. Uh, yes, I understand that there's one side in opposition or a couple of parties in opposition, but I think in general, people want Victoria or Ottawa or council or a regional district to work together for kind of the common good. And so nonpartisan advocacy and good communication skills ties all of that together. I just want to mention that.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Yeah, no, good to to add, I guess commun communication advocacy, I kind of wrap into the same silo. But yeah, for sure. Advocacy is a big piece of it. Um, and uh one of the one of the things I caught myself in an all candidates uh debate or whatever was uh was speaking to advocacy. And I I said, you know, I want to be fighting for things. And I thought I corrected myself in that comment. Uh, that no, advocacy isn't really I don't like the frame of fight or you know, fighting. Uh it because once you're in government, it should be about working towards the best outcome for the community uh and representing the community effectively. And uh politics, you know, the art of compromise. It's not about fighting and and zero sum elections are that way. Yeah. Uh and often elections and governing end up getting inflated in terms of how you behave. Um, and and that's actually something that we'll get into in this episode is sort of some of the learnings from uh the actual election piece. But to to kind of put a bow on what you're talking about, this this circles back to our very first episode where we explain what nonpartisan hacks means and uh the role once you're elected to to act in a nonpartisan way, because your job is there to serve the best interests of the community now and in the future.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Yeah, you know, Lauren Dirksen, who was uh elected to be and appointed, elected, appointed to be the premier of BC, he now has to represent everybody in the province, even though a certain number of people voted orange or green, et cetera, or center or 1BC. Um, and the mayor uh would be elected with, say, in this case, Mary Beale's votes to represent the entire city. Um, you know, Emily Lowen was elected in her riding to represent the entire riding, even though she is a leader of the Green Party. So there is a couple of different hats you have to wear. And that takes some nuance and it takes a little bit of a delicate touch uh to do the job well.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Yeah, absolutely. So maybe we'll talk about the kind of actual election campaign here locally. We'll zoom out a little bit to the province. Uh the because across the province there were local government elections. And uh there were also across the country local government elections, including Ontario recently, and I think a couple more coming up still. So first of all, Sean and I, we both went to UBCM, the convention UBCM in September, which happens right before the local government writs officially drop, you know, the actual official start of local government elections. And so uh that was our first time going to UBCM in that context. And uh so I was kind of curious what's this what's this gonna look like when you've got a lot of people there that may be on the way out of local government or may not get re-elected. Um what what's the vibe gonna be like? Unfortunately, that was all overshadowed by the fact that there were major rumors throughout the entire UBCM convention the whole time we were there about there being a provincial election.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Including people who were running for local government and would pull their papers because they had a really good idea that there was going to be a provincial election and they ran for MLA. There were some people who ran for both, and I believe there's someone who has to resign a council seat in BC because they won MLA.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

Yeah, I think someone won MLA who also got elected to a school board, I think gets a school board, yeah. Um so yeah, that that was one of the many strange dynamics that happened. So, Sean, what are we thinking in terms of this idea of running provincial elections kind of overlapping with local government elections?

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Well, I, you know, UBCM and its delegates and the board of UBCM uh passed an emergency resolution when we were there, uh begging, asking, telling the province to not call a snap election during hours and letting voters focus on the local government issues and letting it be our time, which apparently fell on deaf ears. Um, but I do think it's a good idea that the incoming government, one of the first things they announced, or one of the few things they announced, or several things they announced, is that they're going to bring some policy that makes sure that never happens again. And you cannot call a snap election, which overlaps with local government elections, which I think everyone in BC would probably agree with. I think it's a good idea to not have them at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Uh and and I think it actually ended up somewhat backfiring for the incumbent uh political party that called the election for a number of reasons. One is it just generally, it wasn't clear why there was an election uh when it was still halfway through the mandate. But to have uh already an election underway with people thinking about local government and thinking about local government issues, a lot of local government issues are very dependent on provincial government. Yes. And uh so that's why we talk about advocacy a lot in this podcast, but also uh on council, advocacy, communication, working together, all this stuff we're talking about, you have to do with a provincial government. And who is in the provincial government roles uh might be a different kind of relationship. And so to have the provincial election happening in the middle of the conversation with uh the local government election uh actually brought some issues uh uh into focus, I think, where uh local government often maybe has to really pressure the provincial government to do things that this I don't know about other provincial governments, but in this term, we've definitely kind of run into some issues with fed uh provincial policy that we didn't like at the local government level. Well, that just kind of highlighted all that a lot more than it would have maybe otherwise been.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Yeah, we know there's a lot of downloading, offloading from issues from the province that they don't want to deal with and they push us in directions without consulting, et cetera. There's non-disclosure agreements and all of that stuff that we have spoken to. One story I wanted to mention is from uh Adam Olson. Shout out to Adam because I know you're listening, because you're a big listener of ours, and we've had you on the show. Um, he was in a cab on election night, I think, going down to where he was uh part of the panel, and uh he was talking to the cab driver, and the cab driver's like, Oh, what election? I've already voted. And the cab driver, in his mind, has already voted on a local government election, and he didn't know that there's a provincial election going on. And so one thing, and we know that people who are elected or wanting to be elected, local government or whatever level, who are listeners or main demographic. Um, the the world that we live in of being very politically wonky and knowing policy and who's the premier and who's the minister of that and who's this and who's that.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

That's all the trading cards.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Yeah, that is not the world that the general public lives in when they're getting their kids to soccer, trying to pay their bills. That we are way above that. So everything we do has to, you really have to take uh put on a different pair of glasses and look at it from someone who isn't ingrained in all of the stuff that we're listening, you know, that we do and we listen to. That is we're we are not normal people to be this interested in politics. And we have to keep that in mind if you're gonna call a provincial snap election when there's already a local government election that's been scheduled for four years and will be scheduled for four years because that's our that's what we're told to do. So we do what we're told to do. And if that's the mindset of people and they've already voted for Pete Fry or something, then their voting is done. I don't know what the other signs are that are out there. I don't know why are there still provincial signs out there? They should be down already because I've already voted for Pete Fry. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

That was that was definitely one of the and the to build on the downsides beyond to the confusion piece, it's also hurts those local government or sorry, the provincial government. Uh well, I think it's worked out to hurt the provincial government uh, I don't know, people running for provincial government more than local government people. And that was one of the things I was thinking about leading into. It's like, okay, where are we gonna see the bigger uh damage or or uh lower turnout? Uh is it gonna be provincially or locally? Are people more engaged with provincial issues? I would say generally they are. Um, but the fact that the local government had a bit of a head start on the conversation maybe helped make the local issues more prominent in the conversation and the provincial conversation became a little bit dampened. Uh certainly the signs, uh, a lot of I I do know a lot of people running for MLA held back their signs. Yes, I heard that. Uh and so that meant that there was less time where there are signs out, uh newscasts, uh articles, conversations on, you know, at the I don't know, coffee coffee shop in the in the mornings, uh probably revolved around local government issues a fair bit still. And the result was that people also were thinking about how their local government may work with the provincial government. And uh and for our part, we took advantage in our own ways of the fact that there was a provincial election going on. Uh, you did a press release around uh priority in our region for healthcare, and I did one uh and put a thing on my website calling on the local MLA candidates to submit a response to some needs that we have locally as regards water. And so we're using the opportunity to provincial election. Okay, we'll do some advocacy during this election here and get them on the record for some of our priorities, which I don't know whether that was actually necessarily helpful in the end for uh for people running provincially, uh, especially as incumbents, because as incumbents, they're having to defend what they may or may not have been doing the last few years with regard to working with local government.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

And and to cut uh the provincial candidates some slack, really no one had planned to have a snap election, including the BCNDP. When you see a by-election called for you know Carolyn Finley's uh riding, they called that by-election. Even at that point, the BC NDP did not have an idea that the city was. Yeah, there's a by-election going, yeah. Um, and so most uh 99.9% of provincial candidates did not see this coming. They weren't prepared, they didn't have signs made. Um, only David Eby, from my understanding, and a very small group of people around him finally made the decision, likely too late or far too early, whichever you want and you want, was off on timing. And so it's hard to use this as uh kind of a template moving forward just because of how unprepared everybody was of a snap election. Sometimes when there's a snap election possibly coming, there's rumors about it before the spring or before an October on a year where it looks like there's going to be, and you're only a year ahead of the term, et cetera, et cetera. This one was probably the most unforeseen worst timing on the provincial side.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

So yeah, I I think lesson learned on that. I don't know that anyone will ever again try to call a snap election very tentatively during a municipal government election. Uh, I think that worked out very badly. If you look at the uh the turnout numbers, looks to me like turnout is down. I haven't done the full math on it, but um turnout appears to be turnout was up in our local government elections in our area in Parksville. Uh, and turnout provincially, I think, was down generally. Um, certainly there was a significant drop in the voters who came out for the NDP, and that's been well documented. Yeah, the most, yeah. Yeah, is you know, 200,000. Some just didn't vote. Yep. Um, so that kind of speaks to maybe it didn't work out that well doing it during a provincial but the other thing, I guess, and this is something to talk about is for ourselves and for the province, what is the difference running as an incumbent versus running as a new person?

SPEAKER_00 21:08

I mean, if you're an incumbent with a bad record, then that's not great. If you're an incumbent with a good record, it's probably better. Um that's a good point. Uh having, you know, ha having run and not being an incumbent and having now run being an incumbent, I would argue, and I think I have a pretty decent record, I would argue that being an incumbent, you already know what the job is. Uh, you have an idea of working for four years with um with the public. You have an idea of what the public's comments have been over four years, of emails, of issues, all that stuff, of what it's like being on council. And I was trying to think back during this campaign and uh, you know, how how little I knew about council and how little information I had to go on when I was running. And we heard that from a couple of candidates who were running here in Parksville at all candidates' meetings, when when they're like, you know, I've I've tried to learn a lot over the past four weeks. I'm trying to shove it in my brain like I'm cramming. For an exam, and that candidate set it to a full room. And the room appreciated that is how I felt it it landed because they're imagining, yeah, I'll bet you it it is a lot to try to learn. And you're running uh for your first time. And I I felt it came across as quite honest. But um, I remember that that's kind of how I felt as well, even though I had run federally, and so I kind of had a a a better idea of issues and at least where they land, sort of, but local government issues I really didn't. And I was trying to shove into my brain at the time when I ran federally what were federal issues and what are not. That's about as much as I could fit in my brain. Well, that's provincial, that's local government. So I don't have any idea how a tax requisition works for a wastewater treatment plant. I don't have time to figure that out that I'm trying to figure out what's provincial. And so that all I think is easier as an incumbent if you have a good record. I mean, that's probably the easiest way to put it because you already know how the job works and you feel like you've done a good job.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Yeah, and it's it's hard to it's hard to hard to overcome that record uh either way. So when we look at the provincial election that we just had, um people weren't voting probably based on the campaign promises because there was uh a record of the last couple of years of the provincial government. And same with locally is uh there's uh you can see what people have been doing, you can see what they have or have not been doing. Uh I think both of us kind of took the approach. Now I didn't run for for counsel, but um definitely can point to the work we've been doing without having to even mention it in the campaign itself. No, because people that have been in the community working with us the last four years know what to get, what they're getting, yeah, based on what we've been doing.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

And this is an important point that I wanted to bring up is that um I think it's important to not assume that if you've done a good job over the past four years, that all the people who say didn't know, the cab driver who didn't even know there's a provincial election coming up, and he said he's already voted because he voted locally, local election. It's important not to assume that the good work that you know you've done uh has been had had people paying attention to it in general. They don't watch every meeting, they don't look at the agendas, they don't look at the minutes. They are they elect you and they hope you're gonna do a good job and they send you off on your way. And some of them pay attention. A small amount of people pay attention to some of that stuff. Maybe what makes the paper, maybe not. Um, and so when it comes to election time, make sure you speak to all of the good things that you think you've done and don't assume that people have been paying attention because kind of our job as being elected is to just go and do a good job so that I don't have to pay attention if I'm a voter. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's fair. It's not uh I'm gonna you've done a good job, and I've been paying attention to every meeting, and I've watched it all on YouTube and seen all the minutes, and so I exactly know that you've been doing a great job. And so of course I'm voting for you. That's not a reasonable expectation of people who are going about their lives paying their bills.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

But the trick is when the job is perceived as not have been doing a good job, and that is the other side, and that's kind of what I'm speaking to. Sure. Yeah, it's hard to, it's hard to, if you've been doing a good job and kind of been in the background, just the operations have continued and everything's smooth sailing. Uh, those councils, and this is one of the things I've been testing at was testing at UBCM, speaking to all the different people there at UBCM. Uh, my question was how many people are running in your community for council or mayor? Uh, because my feeling was the more people were running, the more contentious that council had been that makes people want to come out and say, okay, I'm gonna run and try to get the incumbents out.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Yeah, you guys have had three AAPs and they all failed, and this isn't working, and we want uh more input on our taxes and don't try to sneak AAPs past us, and so then you have 42 people running for eight seats.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

There's an example right there, right? So, and I think we saw that uh happen provincially in terms of voter turnout with the the fact that 200,000 people didn't vote for the NDP uh speaks to uh how motivated people are to to go come out and support them. Uh it's kind of speaks to the same thing of the incumbency uh factor and how the perception in the community more generally is that it was people were dissatisfied. And it's harder when people are satisfied. Yeah, you need to make sure you tell people, okay, here's why you're satisfied, or here's why you should re-elect me and put me back in the spot. Um, but when there's a lot of contentious issues in the community and a lot of disharmony in the community and people feel like they're not being heard, not being listened to, that the council or government is just forcing stuff through that people don't want to see, that's where you're really gonna see uh a rise of the uh of people coming out to to run against what they've been seeing the last few years. And in Parksville, I I feel like it's a good sign that in some ways that only 10 people ran for council for those six spots. Uh, it speaks to the fact that there weren't a lot of people who felt like they should get in there and try to solve the problems that were being caused the last four years.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Yeah, and I'm gonna steal some some of the kind of the vibes from political capital and Hotel Pacifico that if you have a party leader who may not be the most inspiring and may have made a bunch of mistakes, and maybe his comms are not great, that even though you've always voted for that party, you might not be inspired to go out and vote for him. And if your arch enemy, the other party, has a leader who actually seems pretty reasonable and calm and isn't the super divisive, extreme, fringe candidate that you're expecting from that party, then you're also not going out to vote against that person because he seems okay. So if you combine those two where you're not inspired to vote for the person you usually do, and you're not inspired to vote against the person you usually do, then you end up staying home. And I can't take credit for that framing altogether because I listen to too many podcasts myself, but that math works in my head as to how well how and why people go out and vote. Sometimes they vote against something. Well, this time they might not have had the against feeling as much as they usually might. If it were KLF, for example, you might have had way more people coming out to vote against. And if you had voting for, and if maybe perhaps if it was John Horgan, and even the candidates had John Horgan signs at the time of that snap election, well, maybe there's a lot of people who are going to go out and vote for a leader. And so you combine the vote for and a vote against. For instance, if you had John Horgan running against KLF, let's see how the voter turnout is. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

Yeah, exactly. And I think that that often people, when they do these uh, you know, analysis of what happened in an election, they they look at uh the the numbers from that election without considering the people who did not vote at all. They didn't even come out to vote. And what does that mean? What we shouldn't we should analyze that part as well. For example, um, speaking to the mayoral race that I was in, people have come to me and said, Oh, if this third person had not run, then you would have won, as if his votes would have gone to me instead. And my answer is like, I don't know. For all I know, that the fact that he was running and that a lot of people uh were there's a lot of uh chatter on social media and otherwise about this person running, and people were not liking that person running. Uh, it could be that a whole bunch more people came out to vote who otherwise would not have voted. And we did see a much higher turnout in the mayoral race in Parksville this year than we did four years ago. And that could well be because more people were motivated to come out to vote against somebody. We don't know why people come out to vote. They can vote because they're very inspired by somebody and want to get that person elected, but they could also be very inspired to not get someone elected. And that is something that we need to think about. And similarly, when people talk about uh, say, uh uh, you know, after these elections, every single time there's a provincial or federal election, it seems like someone speaks to, oh, if we had proportional representation, this is how the legislature or the House of Commons would have been configured if it was proportional representation, by they take the numbers of the past election and just apply them to if there was proportional representation by giving you know allocations to each party based on their popular vote. But uh the reason people vote for, say, the Green Party or Center BC or 1 BC is not the same reason that they're gonna vote for any of those parties in a different electoral system for one. And I think a lot of people may vote for some of those parties because they don't they do want to vote, they want to come out and vote, but they may not want to vote for one of the more likely uh government uh more likely parties to form government for whatever reason. So they feel safe by putting their vote uh check mark next to, say, the Green Party or Center BC or 1BC or whatever other parties may be on the list that they know won't form government anyway. Safe vote.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

So it's you can't graph the current uh election results onto some other system. You can't graph woulda coulda shoulda's if you don't know exactly why people didn't even come out to vote to begin with. People may vote because they're mad, they may not vote because they're happy. Yeah. It's hard to break that down.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Uh a shout out to probably one of our other uh big listeners is Brad West. I'm sure he listens all the time. So hi, Brad. Um bringing us back to our the name of our podcast, non-partisan hacks, when I mentioned, say, a John Horgan and uh Lauren Dirksen, if you actually and or a Brad West who you know, he gets begged all the time to vote to vote to run for uh BC NDP or conservatives, probably, because people have a hard time putting him in a in a color. Yeah. Um when I look at uh John Horgan, well, is he very fringy or is he kind of like mushy middle, which is used as a pejorative? No, he's he's probably pretty good governance, mainstream, nonpartisan. And then we look at a Lauren Dirksen, he really tried to avoid any fringy stuff that'll turn people off. Mainstream, mushy middle, nonpartisan. Brad West talks about hey, local governments, stay in your lane, keep the roads good, keep the water flowing, keep the toilets flushing, do your job. Maybe have an aquatic center and some rec centers, but stay in your lane and spend people's money wisely. Boring, good governance, nonpartisan. Yep. He has a union background. He won't be running for the conservatives, I would argue. If he does get ass, it'll be for the BCNDP. And he would be bringing it back to the John Horgan nonpartisan, mushy middle, mainstream, boring good governance.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Yeah. Yes. And that's that's when you have parties that are kind of the natural governing party, the parties that are likely to hold government, those tend to be and should be big tent parties that have opportunity for of a diversity of voices within those parties. Uh and yeah, proportional representation assumes that the parties are gonna be the same as they are now when they definitely would not be. If there was proportional representation, look at Israel and see what kind of party configurations you're gonna have. They aren't gonna be just three, four viable parties. They're gonna be 20 parties and some with very niche issues. You'll have the uh the uh you know pro this party and the anti-that party. How are they gonna work together in the in the uh in the legislature? So I just I just do want to make sure that people don't graph the current configuration of parties and the results of those onto uh what a proportional representation representation or other system would look like. Um, but I'm gonna get off my PR rant.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Well, Joel, another shout out to Adam and Laura, and we'll have to have them on and we'll just redo the conversation because I'm I you probably want to have that. I don't know if Adam and Laura want to have a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

I want to need to have that conversation again. We did have a fun conversation about proportional, proportional representation. Uh, but the the general point is that we want to have governments that are uh focused on good government for the entire province or entire community or entire country. Exactly. And not just pandering to the niche interests of uh and and the divisive issues. We want them to be uniters, not dividers.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

Yeah. The mushy middle is where the people are, and mushy middle is a pejorative and not a good term for it. It mainstream, that's where they are.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

But the mainstream middle.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

We'll call it the mainstream middle. The parabola of people that are paying their bills for all of this stuff to go on. That's where they are. Yeah. And they are not over on the edges. You might think they are and you might hope they are, but the votes and the seats and the government will reflect that middle of the parabola, is kind of how I look at it.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

Yeah. And definitely when you're in some troubling times and some unpredictable world that we're in right now, uh, it is important to have stability, to have good government, to have um uh broad perspective instead of a narrow niche perspective when you're in these roles of government. And this is a thing we like to harp on all the time on the podcast because uh this is one of the things we've learned from being in local government.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

And I'll take this opportunity to show to uh Sean or uh Joel Grenz, because uh, you know, uh he's for cope, you know, he there's arguably pretty some extreme views out there. Uh he won the most votes in the uh Vancouver election. And uh one of the least divisive motions that he's brought forward is with regards to how bright cars' high beams can be.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

That's just good government there.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

Well, it it kind of is, right? It kind of is. And and uh, I just like to use that as an example where uh you you bring a motion that everyone around the table is like, you know what? They are super bright these days, and I really appreciate you bringing it forward, which you wouldn't think that Cope would bring forward a headlights thing, but he did. So shout out to Sean.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

S-E-A-N is the correct spelling of Sean. Yeah. Yeah, okay, great. Well, and let's do a few sort of you know quicker topics here as we wrap up this episode. Uh so first of all, I guess maybe uh we can chat a little bit about the next um the next phase of our our uh I don't know, service here. Sean. So Sean's continuing on on council. Um and for me, uh I'm leaving council, which will be uh a bit strange for me to be in a non uh not in the role anymore. Um I very much enjoyed uh being on council, learned a ton, and really felt like it's a good way you can make a difference for your community in a positive way. Um Sean, what is what is it gonna look like for you here in the next four years? What are you thinking?

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Uh busy, uh, but I definitely would like to keep the podcast going, Joel Grenz. Um I think you've kind of decided that you would like that as well.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

Yeah, yeah. I think we're looking to keep the podcast going.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

This is our first one post-election. First post-election one, yeah. Uh well, we will have a federal election. You probably are aware, but we will have a federal election in the next couple of years, and that'll be a big one. Uh Mark Carney is, I think, maybe only second to Wab Canoe for popularity right now in Canada. Okay. Uh very popular in the world. Mark Carney might end up being, I don't know, time person of the year or something. Uh yeah, the advanced nope.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

You got some insights on that.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

But I know we're not in a federal liberal riding right now, and so you know that could be interesting whenever that federal election comes in a couple of years. That's probably the next election. Hopefully, we don't have a snap provincial election within that time, or else we might see voter turnout drop. Yeah, let's let's not do the snap election for a while.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

We're hopefully we're kind of stable now in the province for all snapped out for uh yeah, for four years. Yeah. Uh and there's the podcast title, all snapped out. All snapped out. Okay, we got it. Perfect. So, yeah, so the show, we won't uh change much, I think, on the show. We'll continue evolving it, but we're definitely keen to hear from folks on what they'd like to hear uh us talk about. And if you would like to be on the show, please reach out. Uh, we appreciate the positive feedback we've gotten on the show from it's like funny, we go lots of places and people have heard the show. So thank you for mentioning it. We get good feedback. Yeah. And uh so we do want to continue that. Uh and uh so maybe that we'll leave it at that. And if people want to reach out, uh nonpartisanhacks.com is a place to find us.

SPEAKER_00 38:33

Yeah, Joel Grenz, while you were elected and now uh are going in a bit of a different direction, I do want to mention that you have had a lot to do with different elections on different levels and you probably continue to do that. So while you may not be at physically at a table, it frees up time for you to do other things with other elections and podcasting and whatever else.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

So yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to what what the next opportunities are. Uh, a lot of people have suggestions and ideas for me, and so we'll see which suggestions and ideas I end up embracing. But uh I very much appreciate the four years I had at council and uh, you know, FCM committees, uh, meeting people across the province and across the country has been hugely enriching. Um, it's really shaped my thinking on a lot of things and uh having those relationships and seeing how there are people who do want to do a good job delivering for their communities across the country is so great to see.

SPEAKER_00 39:33

Be kind and uh be generous to the people who have been elected. And if you are elected, obviously be kind and generous to the people who elected you. Uh, even if they didn't vote for you, you represent everybody. Thank you for everyone who put their name forward in local government or provincial elections. It is not often not fun, ton of work, uh, and you don't know what the outcome is. And so please uh thank thanks for putting your name forward and be thankful for those who did.

SPEAKER_01 39:55

Yeah, absolutely. So, with that, let's call to wrap on this episode of Nonpartisan Hacks. We, as mentioned, would love to hear what you think. If you have a guest suggestion, a good government story, or a topic idea, please stop by nonpartisanhacks.com. And if you haven't already done so, make sure you subscribe.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

Yeah, share and subscribe. The episodes really help us on our end. Until next time, take care of yourself and your community.