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Time for municipal councilors to put their money where their mouth is |
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Written by Al Hollingsworth
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Friday, 24 April 2009 |
It is all but official - at least three Halifax Regional Municipal councilors are going to put their names on a provincial ballot.
Debbie Hum will run for the Progressive Conservatives in Halifax Clayton Park. Andrew Younger, a longtime Liberal supporter, will be the Grit candidate on the Dartmouth East ballot, and Jim Smith, a one-time New Democrat, will be the standard bearer in Dartmouth North for the Liberals.
With reference to the Dartmouth North contest, it has often been said that politics is a blood sport. If that be the case, keep your eyes focused on this riding as there is no love lost between Smith and the godfather of the north end of the City of Lakes, Jerry Pye.
That said, with these individuals on HRM Council running after one of the 52 chairs in the House of Assembly, and potentially others still to offer, it will once again raise the argument concerning their eligibility to return to council should they lose in their bid.
Those who support the argument that such contenders should be permitted to resume their HRM roles (mostly elected persons, I hasten to add), offer up the rationale that the municipal playground gives these individuals experience, training them for bigger and better things. Balderdash!
If these individuals are that committed to serving their province, then that commitment should be underscored by their willingness to walk away from their current political salaries. Put their money where their mouth is.
Personally, I would welcome an individual with that kind of moral fibre on any ballot I was presented in the polling booth.
In the bigger picture, at the moment the citizens of District 6 (Younger), District 9 (Smith) and District 16 (Hum), will not have proper representation on HRM Council during the provincial election campaign. And this will be a campaign that eats up the best part of two months. That, my fellow citizens, is grossly unfair.
I have worked on enough election campaigns to have a full understanding of the time it takes and amount of effort required. If they are lucky, and triple underline “lucky”, they will get away with 16 to18 hour days. That leaves precious little for HRM business, which goes on as usual.
And to add insult to injury, they continue to be paid as a representative of their municipal constituents.
At this point, I would suggest to each of the three provincial party leaders, Rodney MacDonald, Darrell Dexter and Stephen McNeil, that now is the time to add another plank to your platform: electoral reform.
The individuals above, others before and those to come are doing nothing wrong, they are simply playing by the rules. But it is the rules that must be changed.
Just make it short and simple: if you seek a higher office, you must resign from your current position the day you declare your intention.
In HRM’s case, we pay our councilors very well and deserve nothing less than full time representation. This cannot happen if these people are serving two masters.
(Al Hollingsworth is a retired journalist and was one time actively involved in politics)
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