No excuse for poor election timing, says Petten

By Craig Westcott

Holyrood Mayor Gary Goobie isn’t the only local politician critical of the provincial government’s likely fall election call. Conception Bay South MHA Barry Petten said it’s unfair to the province’s 270 plus towns and cities to hold a provincial election at the same time they are holding municipal elections.
The PC member, who intends to run again this election, said he has been hearing a lot of talk about the problems that could be caused by having two sets of elections happening at the same time.
The reason that could happen is that provincial legislation requires newly minted Premier John Hogan to schedule the provincial vote by October 14 at the latest while the municipalities will hold their elections on October 2, a date that was already rescheduled. The original date fell on September 30, which is National Truth and Reconciliation Day.
Premier Hogan can call a provincial election anytime between now and October 14, but Petten said the clock has ticked on any vote that could be held before school is out on June 26.
“I think that ship has sailed,” said Petten.
As for July, that’s the heart of summer, he pointed out, with many people on vacation. Come August, the eastern Avalon will be busy hosting the Canada Summer Games.
“So, the only month left is September, and that’s right in the heart of municipal elections,” said Petten. “It’s almost impossible for them to avoid clashing with the municipal elections, because we need a 29-day minimum window (between the drop of the writ and election day). If you backtrack from the 14th of October, that brings you to about the 15th of September when the writ would have to be dropped. So, unless they change the municipal election date, we’re going to have a clash.”
The effects of that will be serious, Petten said, especially for larger municipalities that draw a crowd of candidates vying to find seats on their local councils.
“On the northeast Avalon and in the bigger urban areas, for instance CBS where we have a nine-member council where you are looking at probably three people running for each position, which is not out of the question, you could have 27 candidates with their signs in the ground. Then you throw a provincial campaign on top of it and you could have up to 30 different candidates (with their signs out) at the same time at every intersection. I think it would be chaos, to be quite frank. In St. John’s, it would be even worse again. Then you’ve got Mount Pearl, Paradise, Torbay and those areas on the northeast Avalon and even up through Holyrood and Bay Roberts and those areas. I think it would have a big impact and be confusing. It’s not fair to voters… You’re going to have people confusing who is provincial and who is municipal, who’s running for what. It’s unfair to the voters and obviously to all the candidates.”
Petten said that could add to voter fatigue, especially coming so soon after a tightly fought federal election.
“People are going to be frustrated, they’re going to be turned off, and if you are looking at the on the fence voters who don’t vote regularly, I think it’s going to press the voter turnout down both provincially and municipally, which is sad because we’re always looking to increase voter turnout, especially in municipal elections, a lot of which are run by volunteers. So, I think it’s totally unfair to all involved and it was avoidable.”
Petten said Hogan and the Liberal government could have brought in legislation to extend the deadline for the provincial election before they closed the legislature early this spring.
“They were in more of a rush to get out (of the House of Assembly) than do what should have been done,” he said.
Petten said that while pushing the provincial vote to later in October or early November would still have been close to the municipal election, it “wouldn’t have been the end of the world.”
Another consideration, Petten said, is that it’s a fairly small field of people who are usually involved in political campaigns and they tend to participate at all levels of them, municipal, provincial and federal, either as candidates, organizers, or volunteers, and that will spread them thin if they have to participate in two different elections at the same time.
“It’s putting a lot on top of people, especially volunteers, and stretching everyone to the max,” Petten said. “And like I said, this didn’t have to happen… There’s no real excuse, and to me, it’s more a lack of respect for the electorate than anything else.”
As for fighting the election, Petten said the PC Party, which has between 30 and 35 of the necessary 40 candidates already in place, is in better shape than it has been at other times on the eve of an election.
“We only need another five or six candidates and I don’t think there is going to be any issue with those, it’s just a matter of timing,” Petten added. “We’ve got some fundraisers coming up and we have a good organization behind us, a good ground game, we’re prepared behind the scenes. We’ve been ready to go for a while now, and every day (extra) now is just more time to prepare and fine tune everything. We’ve got a lot of candidates out knocking on doors and identifying the vote, which is hugely important and is a big advantage to have that amount of time to get out in the district. And our leader (Tony Wakeham) has been on the ground in districts around the province door knocking and getting out to meet people, which is key. So, we feel we can run a really strong campaign, we think we have a good chance, but the only ones who really know the answer to that is the electorate, but we’re going to put a good showing in, a good campaign and hope for the best.”
As for the state of the governing Liberal Party, Petten has noticed a lack of nomination calls, aside from Premier Hogan and Mount Pearl North MHA Lucy Stoyles being acclaimed to run again in their respective districts.
“They keep saying they have candidates, but they have not had one nomination, which is kind of odd,” Petten said. “I’m hearing there are some current ministers who may not be running again, which is another big problem, because that’s a big void to fill in any campaign. So, I don’t know how ready they are. They’re boasting they have a lot of money in the bank, but money will only get you part of the way. You’ve got to have a good strong slate of candidates and a good organization ready to roll with a good volunteer base, and I’m not sure where they are with that stuff. As the governing party you would think they are (ready) but we have had no signals of it.”