Awards Night vs. Election Night

Tomorrow marks the 20th year for the Geminis, awards for excellence in Canadian television. This year, there are two public-input categories: Viewer's Choice Award for your favourite host and the Most Popular Website. I've only seen about half the shows on the "favourite host" list, but that's a lot more than the websites I've visited and, alas, voting is now closed for the websites so I can't even vote for one of the two I have seen!

I will, however, be heading out with Hubby as the polls open tomorrow morning to vote in the municipal elections. Unfortunately this year the results will not likely be a surprise in the City of Victoria -- at least not for Mayor.

The incumbent, Alan Lowe, is running again. If he wins this will be his third term and that seems pretty likely since he's up against three crackpots and Ben Isitt. It's not fair to lump Isitt in with the other nutjobs, but he is a longshot. He just barely got the approval of the VCE slate ("Victoria Civic Electors," basically the municipal arm of the NDP) which caused a significant split within the VCE. It has meant separate campaigns for the VCE mayoral and councillor candidates, who don't want to be associated with the smug and radical Isitt.

The race for councillors may be more interesting. There are 28 candidates running for 8 seats.

Perpetual councillor Helen Hugues is running again (she's been on council since 1990) though she is actually one of the few people I consider truly non-partisan. She seems to weigh each issue on its own merits.

Creepy Dennis Oliver (who believes women should literally serve men -- no I am not exaggerating, he's been quoted in print in the most recent Monday Magazine) is running again. In the last election he came dead last out of 24 candidates, let's see if he can repeat that again, m'kay?

The Greater Victoria Green party is fielding two candidates, Philippe Lucas and Sonya Chandler; if you like your environmentalism a little further to the extreme perhaps George Sirk is more your style -- he thinks all roads should be renamed bikeways and that cars should take a back seat to bikes. Mmm-hmmm.

Among the VCE candidates are two of my least favourite current councillors, the NIMBY-friendly Pam Madoff and the always-ready-with-a-pithy-soundbite Dean Fortin. In fact, of the VCE slate only one is likely to get my vote: Bryan Skinner, and that's because he has a strong arts focus, something that is strangely missing from a City Council that is supposed to represent the Cultural Capital of Canada.

Another candidate likley to get my vote is Denyce Burrows -- if only because she deserves to get what she's wishing for. Burrows used to have a buisness in the downtown core, and spent a lot of time complaining to City Hall about the crime and other problems in the area (an example: Minutes from 2003 (PDF)). Fed up, she moved her business to another municipality (the very sleepy and isolated Oak Bay) and having seen the difference she's running to try and help fix Victoria. Of course, she will have to extract the heads out of the other 7 councillors backsides -- not to mention the Mayor's own head which may either be up his tookus or in the sand, depending on media wind direction -- before she can effect much change.


Not bored yet? Here's some Q&A with the candidates in the Martlet newspaper and more Q&A from Monday Magazine.