Dianne Wood reminds us why municipal elections — mayor, city council and (although she doesn’t mention them) school boards — are worth paying attention to and demanding that elected representatives even at that level (perhaps especially at that level) need to have a good moral compass.
On a purely pragmatic level, municipal politics is often the minor league training ground for provincial and federal politics, and yet that isn’t quite fair. Several years ago I was part of a group that urged a strong evangelical Christian to seek a party nomination for provincial office and he said that while he always thought he would eventually run for higher office, his work wasn’t done at the local level after a half dozen years sitting on city council. He said he could still make a major difference addressing zoning laws (stopping strip joints and message parlours from being near residential or school neighbourhoods) and advertising standards in the city (restricting lewd advertising on city space). The neighbourhoods in which we live are influenced directly by the politicians we place in municipal office, much more than their provincial or federal counterparts.
As Dianne Wood says, it is important to take municipal government seriously and vote only for candidates who share our moral values.
