Big questions about Brandon’s future

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/08/2022 (1462 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BRANDON – Something’s wrong in Brandon. It’s too soon to declare the local democracy dead, but the symptoms are serious and the prognosis is not promising.

While Winnipeg has more than a dozen candidates running for mayor in this fall’s municipal election, just one candidate, city councillor Jeff Fawcett, is running to be mayor of the province’s second-largest city.

For the second local election in a row, Brandon could be headed for an acclamation in the mayoral election. In 2018, no candidates emerged to oppose mayor Rick Chrest’s re-election. With less than a month before the deadline for candidates to register for this year’s election, there is no indication that anybody plans to challenge Fawcett’s bid to replace Chrest, who is retiring from politics at the end of this term.

The problem extends beyond the campaign for the mayor’s chair. As I write this, a total of just 13 candidates have registered to run for election to Brandon’s city council. Five of the city’s 10 city council wards currently have just one candidate, and there is still no candidate in one ward. Even worse, not one person has publicly announced he or she is running for election (or re-election) to the Brandon school board.

This isn’t a case of the existing candidates being so popular and qualified that there is no point in opposing them. The scarcity of candidates for mayor, city council and school board reflects a more serious problem that has been years in the making.

Indeed, voter turnout in Brandon’s 2018 civic election was just 17 per cent, with Chrest and two councillors being acclaimed. None of the 10 wards had more than two candidates. Just 42 per cent of eligible voters voted in the 2014 civic election, which featured a heated mayoral contest between Chrest and then-incumbent Shari Decter Hirst.

In 2021, turnout was a microscopic 2.6 per cent in the Meadows ward byelection contest between just two candidates. Granted, that was during the pandemic, but it’s a concern when a city councillor is elected with just 50 votes in total.

If I said there is widespread concern in Brandon about low voter turnout and the absence of good-quality choices for mayor, council and school board, I would be lying.

If I said that large numbers of Brandonites are openly frustrated and concerned by the absence of a city-wide discussion about serious issues and challenges facing the city, and potential solutions to those challenges – the kind of debate that often happens during election campaigns in healthy democracies – that would also be untrue.

That’s in part because few people are willing to endure a four-year beating on social media by serving on city council or school board, and understandably refuse to jeopardize their businesses and careers.

Beyond that, however, a distressing portion of Brandon’s population is indifferent about the city’s future because they don’t intend to be part of that future. They aren’t participating in local elections, helping to solve local problems or devise long-term plans for the city because they don’t intend to be here over the long run.

They have an escape plan, which generally means putting in their time at work, maxing out their pension and moving somewhere else, even if it’s just Winnipeg.

When my kids were younger, I remember so many of my fellow parents telling me they hoped their kids would leave Brandon when they became adults, because they wanted them to have a brighter future and more fulfilling life than Brandon offered.

As a consequence of that pervasive attitude, Brandon continues to annually export its best and brightest to other communities, where they make contributions they could be making here. Now their parents plan to follow them.

How do we reverse this problem? How do convince our kids to stay or come back?

Beyond that, how do we persuade skilled, qualified people in other jurisdictions – doctors, scientists and entrepreneurs, for example – that Brandon offers a fulfilling quality of life and bright future for them and their families?

How do we convince more Brandonites to care enough to do the work necessary to create that better life and brighter future for others? Those are big questions, and the future of Brandon hinges on the answers.

If only there were candidates willing to provide those answers.

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