A final reflection on Burlington’s election

Third-party advertising abuses need to be addressed by new council, province

Now we can reflect on our election highlights and lowlights. A positive was that Burlington had a higher turnout than 2014 — (almost 40 per cent) — but still poor! And election day ran smoothly, with only minor glitches.

City clerk Angela Morgan and her team deserve praise. Anticipating problems with the poor MPAC-generated voters list, they had adequate staff at most locations, and a first — results were available live on the city site.

The negatives were not the city’s doing, but the province’s. The former provincial Liberals had made rule changes — some good — but one in particular, dreadful. It allowed personal attack ads, most of which targeted Mayor-elect Marianne Meed Ward, in print and on social media.

That numbered companies can register for that purpose, and their principals be unidentified on the city’s site doesn’t pass the smell test. Today, openness and transparency are essential. Our new council should quickly ask the current provincial government to alter that provision.

How many will file detailed financial statements by the March 29 deadline? My guess — none! The penalty? “Naughty, naughty! You can’t register in 2022 as a third-party advertiser.” But what stops these same actors from creating new anonymous companies then?

Another change allowed ranked ballots, but only London tried them. Not being a techie, I assumed results could be available quickly, but not so. London didn’t know the winners until the next day.

After each scan, the name with the fewest votes is deleted, and his/her second and third-place votes reassigned, until a candidate emerges with over 50 per cent.

Could a program be written to do all this scanning in one pass?

The ballot had three columns beside each name — one each for first, second and third choices. There were 14 candidates for mayor, and it took 14 ballot scans for the winner to get over 50 per cent. Fourteen ward councillors were chosen the same way. Interestingly, all winners led from the first scan.

An account on London’s experience will be interesting. Voter reaction was mixed.

But Vancouver’s system is so complicated people were preparing spread sheets. The Oct. 20 ballot was arms-length long, and names were not alphabetical, but in random order. Vancouver has a party system, but some candidates run for a party, some independently. There were nine parties this year.

Councillors don’t represent wards — 10 are elected “at large” and more than 70 ran. They also elect nine school trustees and seven parks board commissioners at large. Not surprisingly, voter turnout was not released. Thankfully our system is user-friendly.

Life goes on in Burlington. Two separate groups have appealed council “overdevelopment” approvals to LPAT (OMB successor). On their own dime. The reasons are similar.

Dynes Road area residents felt betrayed when council approved 20 townhouses that would funnel all their traffic down the now dead-end Maplehill Avenue. And they worry that nearby Ebenezer Church, too, will redevelop, exacerbating that imposition.

A similar appeal is against a project north of Upper Middle Road, opening dead-end Georgina Court. It will collect traffic from two new single homes, four semi homes and 14 three-storey townhouses adjacent to Upper Middle. This single family area, where parking is already an issue, believes it should not be the development’s throughway, but that Upper Middle should be used.

Both groups filed costly case synopses and appeal records. The Dynes group was denied LPAT assistance, but has a February hearing conference date. The city is not willing to mediate.

For those who hoped for better, LPAT isn’t. It just confirmed the board’s approval of the Adi 26-storey condo at Lakeshore and Martha on a postage stamp sized lot. More later.

Some citizens spend their lives improving things for their community. Aldershot lost a treasure in Linda Cupido, who died Oct. 26. She was an understated dynamo, involved in multiple endeavours; co-founder of the Aldershot Community Council and the Burlington Foundation, and fundraiser for the LaSalle Park Pavilion, Habitat for Humanity and Aldershot’s Compassion Society, to name a few. She was a Burlington Citizen of the Year and recipient of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal. What a difference one individual can make!