10 council candidates have same last name

TROUT RIVER, N.L. — Politics is a different kind of blood sport in the tiny western Newfoundland town of Trout River.

Ten of 24 candidates running for council in Tuesday’s municipal elections have the same last name — Crocker. Five more are named Brake, and several others are related to either or both of those families through blood or marriage.

The top seven contenders will form a new council, and will nominate a mayor and deputy mayor from among them.

“We’re talking about surnames that carry the major part of the population,” said incumbent mayor Gloria Barnes, who’s up for re-election in the pretty seaside community of about 600 people.

“So it wouldn’t be uncommon for those names to show up on a ballot.”

Nor is it unusual for council members to have close or distant family ties, she added. Barnes served alongside her sister-in-law, Viola Parsons, who was deputy mayor and is running again. Parsons’s uncle served as a councillor and is also on the ballot, and her sister is the town clerk.

Trout River bills itself as a place carved from land and sea, “at the end of the road” on Route 431, almost 100 kilometres from Deer Lake. It’s surrounded by Gros Morne National Park, a UNESCO world heritage site.

Stephen Tomblin, who teaches political science at Memorial University, said it’s common in smaller communities around the province for the same families to dominate. Bullying and nasty politics can result, muting public debate and compromising good policy, he said in an interview.

“Things become more personal because they are personal,” he said. “Democracy works best when we have arguments and counter-arguments, when we can bring different interests together, have debate and come up with a kind of shared perspective.”