If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? What if there's an election with only one candidate - is it a real election?
Though you might take this to refer to elections in Cuba under Fidel Castro, the old Soviet Union, or North Korea under its current regime, the quote is just as applicable to the far-more-democratic Thompson, where the reason for the sole candidate is not dictatorship but rather apathy - or perhaps confusion.
According to Lynn Taylor, Thompson's senior election official and former city manager from 1993 through 2008, only one candidate has registered for the upcoming municipal elections, which are being held on Oct. 27.
That one candidate would be Les Ellsworth, the former United Steelworkers union president from 2006 to 2009. He's running for city council. As of Sept. 3, nobody has registered to run for mayor, nor has anybody else registered for council. That includes the incumbents who currently occupy those seats. Despite the quickly-approaching filing deadline of Sept. 21, Ellsworth is the only official candidate at this point. Registration has been open since May 1 for mayor, and since June 30 for council.
Registering as a candidate, which is a new process to Manitoba which was not in place in previous municipal elections, also involves disclosing campaign banking and budget information to the city. After registering, candidates can begin fundraising and campaigning in earnest.
Of course, as this is the first election contested with the longer registration period, perhaps it should come as no surprise that interested candidates have been slow in registering - they're not used to it, Taylor explained, and might be waiting for the more familiar campaign deadline of late September. Taylor also said that some prospective candidates have been "taken aback" by the new financing regulations.
There is also the matter of nomination papers - between Sept. 15 and Sept. 21, prospective candidates must file a collection of 25 signatures supporting their candidacies.
Anyone wishing to run for mayor or council must be a Canadian citizen, at least 18 years old, and be qualified to vote in Thompson, achieved by having lived or owned property in Thompson for at least six months.
Councillors in Thompson are elected through an at-large system. This means that all councillors represent the entire city, and all voters vote for a full eight-member council. This is in contrast to a ward system, where councillors represent specific neighbourhoods, and residents of those neighbourhoods only vote for one or two councillors from their ward.
If a full slate of candidates is not fielded - if only eight or fewer throw their hat in the ring to run for council - everybody in the race will be acclaimed to a position, and another election will be called to fill any vacancies. Along the same lines, Taylor said, if nobody should run for mayor, another election will be held immediately for that position.
On the contribution front, only Manitoba residents - not corporations, unions, or anonymous benefactors - can make donations to a candidate's war chest, and no individual, including the candidate themselves, can contribute more than $1,500. All contributions and campaign-related expenses must be recorded diligently and filed by no later than May 25, 2011.
This past spring, the city passed a bylaw capping the amount any one candidate can spend on their campaign at $5,000 for anybody running for council, and $10,000 for mayoral campaigns.
After the election, the top eight vote-getters among those running for council will be named councillors, and whichever mayoral candidate received the most votes will become mayor. The terms of office for all nine will begin Oct. 28 at noon, though they must take an oath of office before they can perform any official duties.
Although the most obvious function of a councillor is to attend the meetings at City Hall every second Monday, councillors and the mayor also sit on a number of city committees, can be appointed to outside agencies, and are expected to represent Thompson and its residents at all times.
The current council consisted of the mayor and seven councillors - though effectively there had only been six councillors for the last few months, after Brian Wilson passed away May 9. A bylaw passed in April called for council to expand to nine - eight councillors and the mayor - with part of the reason for the change being a better spread of the workload among the nine elected officials, who officially only work on a part-time basis even though their responsibilities generally involve more work than most part-time jobs.
The current rates of pay for mayor and council, last updated in 2004, are set at $29,745.45 per year for the mayor, $11,068.40 per year for the deputy mayor, and $9,915.15 per year for councillors, all paid in monthly installments. There is additional reimbursement if time from another job has to be missed while attending to city matters.
School board elections, for the School District of Mystery Lake and school boards across the province, will also take place Oct. 27. Mystery Lake has yet to have any official candidates, but that is much less surprising than the city's lack of candidates, as school board nomination papers - again requiring 25 signatures - can only be filed between Sept. 15 and Sept. 21 (the new registration process does not apply to anyone running for a school board trustee position).
The qualifications for running for a trustee position - residency, citizenship, age - are the same as those running for council, though with the added qualifier that any candidate must not be a current student in the school district.
Once elected, school board trustees are expected to regularly attend school board meetings (held twice a month in Thompson), interact and engage with the community, and ensure that a basic level of education services is available. The school board has a large annual budget, which for the 2010-2011 year has been set at $37,537,095, an increase of 2.61 per cent from the previous year and slightly more than the $35.25 million budget submitted by the city.
An information session for anybody interested in running for a school board trustee position will be held at the School District of Mystery Lake office on Sept. 13. There are seven trustee positions, including the chair and vice-chair.
