Newly elected city council offers more diversity
Four women, two people of colour on 11-member city council
Peterborough doubled the number of women on city council to four, during the municipal election on Monday, and also elected two people of colour as councillors — and Stephen Wright, a new councillor-elect, says he couldn’t be happier about it.
“Peterborough made history — two black councillors!” Wright said in an interview at his home in the north end on Tuesday.
He was one of those two councillors — the other is Kemi Akapo, newly elected in Town Ward.
To put it in perspective, Toronto elected four people of colour as city councillors on Monday (out of a total of 25).
Peterborough city council is comprised of the mayor and 10 councillors.
That left Wright impressed with local voters.
“They made a statement like nobody’s business — that was amazing,” he said. “Look at this: Peterborough’s setting the example when it comes to diversity.”
Before Monday, council had two women on council — but now there are four.
Those are Diane Therrien (mayor-elect — previously a Town Ward councillor); Coun. Lesley Parnell (re-elected in Otonabee Ward); Kim Zippel (councillor-elect in Otonabee Ward); and Kemi Akapo (councillor-elect in Town Ward).
Akapo also spoke of the diversity on the new council, in an interview Tuesday.
“We have more women on council, we have people of colour, we have different ages on council and different backgrounds,” she said.
She also said she was concerned on Monday when there were technical difficulties with the online voting system; the polls and online voting system had to remain open an extra hour (until 9 p.m.) to accommodate everyone who wanted to vote.
“One thing I pushed a lot was online voting — I’m glad the