Jim Groom Election Results

Jim has come back to the Porch to talk about how the election campaign played out for all the candidates. He and Brian discuss the next steps for the incumbent Mayor and new city council and how they will have to come together for our community.

Transcript

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Well, I think the big story actually is the line ups and the dysfunction that existed, based on, Bill 20 and the rules that they put in place. And of course, the provinces divesting themselves of any responsibility by by saying, well, you know, you had a year's notice, you should have been able to respond to it. But it is, unfortunate because, you know, democracy is based on elections, of course, and voting and getting the vote out. And I have talked to a number of people who said, well, I was just so frustrated with the line up, I couldn't wait. This episode to bring Back the Porch, brought to you by Bernie Leahy, River Street Realty, let's get you home. Well, with apologies to Willie Nelson on the porch again. Just can't wait to get on the porch again. And this time we're back with Jim Groom. Welcome, Jim. Sorry for the singing. No. No problem Brian. That's a good way to start my morning. So the election is now done. A week ago, we were at the polls. We lined up in long lines. We cast their ballots, and we got the results. Were you surprised? Well, I think the big story actually is the line ups and the dysfunction that existed, based on, Bill 20 and the rules that they put in place and of course, the provinces divesting themselves of any responsibility by by saying, well, you know, you had a year's notice, you should have been allowed to respond to it, but it is, unfortunate because, you know, democracy is based on elections, of course, and voting and getting the vote out. And I have talked to a number of people who said, well, I was just so frustrated with the line up, I couldn't wait. And, as we talked a little bit before, you know, the turnout becomes questionable. What was the percentage? And it doesn't seem like anybody wants that information out to too much, because I think there was a lot of frustrated people. I've talked to a lot of folks that have said, oh, I was two hours in line and things of this nature, but, I went three times to try and vote, and alignments were so, so bad. I finally was able to get, one. It wasn't too bad. And, I was able to get through fairly quickly, but it was like at the 11th hour and I had to wait that long. So as far as the turnout, as far as the actual results are concerned, it's quite interesting. I think we have a lot of candidates for council that were very qualified folks, and there's a few that I wish would have made it as well, but it would have required an expansion from 9 to 12 or maybe even 14 people in order to absorb all those folks. There were some really good candidates and really heartfelt candidates that didn't make it in, but the eight that did are quality experienced in some cases. So good, well spoken folks that are going to do a great job. Of course, the mayor's race is is an interesting, consideration. I've returned to it as a vindication for the mayor, and I still think it's a vindication, even though she went from 66% of the vote to 32, 33% of the vote, she still won a plurality and not a majority, but a plurality. And that means that she goes to the top of the list and she's the number one candidate. So she must have done something right. Her base obviously came forward and supported her, and, one thing about the base that she has, it's there's a portion that's very, very loyal and very a very, she can do no wrong. I think in that case of some of those folks and, so be it. Yeah. When we talk about this election, I thought that we were going to see a greater turnout because of the turmoil in the last four years. Now, we don't know how many, eligible votes there are, how many eligible voters there were. We do know that there were 18,265 ballots cast. Right. And that is about 1741 less than we had in 2021. To me, I think the problem was, as you said, the long lineups, but it was that active voter list that they had where you could register at City Hall, or you can register online. But then when you got to the polls, you had to fill out another form. Yeah. And there was three computers where these people were trying to keep track of, okay, here comes Joe. Blow off. Scratch him off the list so Joe Blow can go vote three, 4 or 5 times. They only had I talked to the people at the Big Marble Go Center, and they said they only started with two computers. They had to bring in another one. And I think that was the case that a couple of places. So that was why the long lines, it took me one hour from the time I got to the back of the line till my ballot went into the box. Know. So yeah. I stuck to it. But like you said, I know people who said, no, I'm I'm gone. Yeah, this this is not working for me. And to contextualize it a little bit, you know, the 2021 election was in a Covid year. And we as you say, we had more people show up during the Covid year to to vote than we did this time around. And I it'd be nice to put to to quantify it somehow, but I'm not sure you'd have to have a, somebody right there at the polls to say, well, you're frustrated. You just didn't didn't vote because you was too much of a line up and quantify that. But it didn't make it any easier. And as we discussed in the last time, Pre-registering, seemed like the thing to do. And yet it was really immaterial, because when you showed up, you registered anyway. And the vote 20 was designed, as I understand it, to prevent voter fraud and all these other things, a problem that didn't exist. And they were trying to solve it. And there was a lot of unintended consequences. The the time frame for appeals. They gave 72 hours for an appeal. Why? As we know, Election Alberta said the the formal results weren't announced till Friday. Well, 72 hours from the Monday means that you couldn't appeal because you didn't know the final result. So if anyone had been in that situation where it was so close to vote as we have in Calgary, the process was was flawed and it wasn't thought out very well. So unintended consequences have led to a lot of problems in my opinion. How confident do you think people are in the result because of the whole process? Well, the worst thing for us, as we see in the States, is when people question the actual process, when the question, when the the process itself is not dependable, isn't trustworthy, isn't believable, all of a sudden you get people who say, well, if the process isn't working, we need to change that process somehow. Fundamental change or whatever is required in order to to do that. And that that becomes an issue. So was this by design or was it by accident? The bill 20 sort of tried to change the, the structure. You know, this government, the U.c.p government has tried to do a lot of social engineering, whether we like it or not. And of course, we put in temporarily we put in political parties in the two major cities, Calgary and Edmonton. And now the minister's already came out and said, well, we're going to continue with that experiment. It was not an experiment. It was an attempt to put the thumb on the scale, and then you're going to continue to try and put this on the scale, even though in Calgary, an independent was elected and it really didn't seem like there was much use for party affiliation or slates. We had to fill out 39 long names on the civic, city Council ballot. Folding it up was like trying to fold up one of those old road maps. Yeah, never seem to go back together again. Right. Why did we have to do that? I know that was, provincial legislation, but we have always voted by hand. But a computer card we just used to circle, and then they put them into the machine to count them. We did not vote electronic. Least. We always had that, you know, X yeah, marks the spot. So I'm not sure why we had to go to the Hand-count. This goes back to, the 2020 3rd May election. So, I was working with with you and chat TV at the time, and we were noticing that Banff Kananaskis was at first u.c.p and it looked like they were they were winning through the the night when more polls started to come in, they changed that projection to N.D.P victory. And the end of the day, the NDP won by 310 votes at the UCP AGM. And in November of the same year, recommendation number 13 that came from Banff. Can and ask is, was that for the integrity of the election process, we should go back to hand counted ballots and the Premier, of course, was, dependent on her base to get support. And she, carte blanche, accepted all of the recommendations that came through on that AGM, including hand balloting. And, it costs us at least$500,000 more in Medicine Hat. I think they quote$5 million more in Edmonton and something similar in Calgary, and it's cost a fortune. And the Premier at one point said, well, we may help augment some of your expenses, but but that was pie in the sky. And of course it's over now. So all those municipalities have to absorb those extra costs because of an ideological approach. And of course, we remember Tucker Carlson claiming that the the American election in 2020 was was rigged and Dominion Voting Systems wasn't effective, and they were Fox News was eventually sued for $786 million. Tucker Carlson was fired from his job because he was making these false claims, but unfortunately, the base in the UCP part of the base that pretty much has control of the party, believe then that's the problem. And as soon as you discredit the process, you change the entire aspect of democracy. It's democracy isn't working because the process is flawed. It causes a lot of dissension within the, the, the, the voting public. When we look at the mayoral race this year, we see Lindsay Clark won by 767 votes, not the landslide that she had four years ago. Any vote splitting come into play there? Do you think what might have led to well. By, basic math, it would be a vote split. You know, if we see the third and the fourth candidates or the second and third candidates, obviously, if we look at all the candidates, they had almost 67% of the vote compared to the mayor, who's got 32%. But in in a a multi-party or multi-candidate system, that's what you get. You get to the plurality rather than a majority. And a lot of times and the mayor went, as you say, from 66% and in the last election to 32, 33% at this time, a lot of people would say, well, that demonstrates that there was more dissension than there was an agreement. But the way the system works, you still get the person who gets the most votes wins that plurality, and they go to the head of the class and they take over at that in that position. I still think it does sort of vindicate the mayor to an extent in that none of the incumbents, the three incumbents from council that ran, none of them, the clean slate, in fact, somewhere they got 20, what, 23, 24th in the running. And you me, Grogan, I thought, would have done better, quite frankly. Was he wearing some of what happened because he was on council before he turned out to be, what, the fourth of fourth runner in, in the skip the thing. So it was, you know, a repudiation of that former council and a somewhat a vindication for the mayor. And yet I've talked to so many people who said, let's wipe the slate, get start from from scratch. And I guess there was really no opposition to the mayor that everybody said, yes, let's galvanize behind that person, because obviously, she didn't get 67% of the vote. She'd got the 33, if you like, of the others. So she's not the most popular person based on those elections. But if there's between all those other people, as you say, it's a bit of a vote splitting without the traditional aspect of vote splitting is you vote against somebody and you team up, and you might not like candidate number two, but everybody votes for them to avoid getting elected. Number one, I ain't the anybody but candidate type of thing do. Barnes finished second, 767 votes behind. Do you think he brought some political baggage with him? Yes, yes, I think I think he had a great ground game. I think he's got lots of credibility in his experiences and etc. but you can't ignore his history with the wild Rose and in particular the U.c.p and, getting removed from caucus and, having some positions that might not have sat well with some folks and the aspect that our Premier represents, Medicine Hat, medicine hat, is a little shaky. When she wouldn't allow Drew Barnes back into the the caucus. And so there may be some thoughts that we would never see the light of day again as a, as a municipality. If the Premier had to work with, with drew. I'm just speculating, of course, but that could have played, as you say, with some of the baggage aspects. It could have played out in that regard. When I go back to 2018, we had three newcomers elected to city council. And then of course, in 2021, we had six newcomers. This time we have five newcomers, technically, not counting Cluxton, Cox and Braga, who have previous experience here in the mix. We have this time in council. Do you like it? I do, I think having some experience. Of course, the former mayor, Mr. Clarkson, on there, he knows the inside ball game aspects of it and, that's going to be beneficial as long as it's, doesn't become a conflict, you know? Well, we didn't do it this way. You know, you've, I've worked with people in the past who. Well, that's not how we traditionally did it. So why don't we keep a tradition? And you want to bring something new and fresh to it so you can't get that conflict? Of course, the mayors interviews that I've seen to this point have all said collaboration, cooperation, the typical verbiage that you have to give after after an election to say, yeah, here's the olive branch, as a, as a former, lawyer on the A polity, I think she's more of a technocrat than anything else. And she knows the inside baseball workings of the city hall, and she wants to do that, and she likes to do that, and she can ensure that the iser the identities are crossed. But I'm not sure that's the best way to communicate with your fellow councilors. So we'll have to see if that flushes out. Interesting that, during the, 125th celebration of the medicine that fire and emergency services that, the council was there and they did appear to be united. They were posing for pictures. They were smiling. We heard during the election campaign, we asked some of the candidates, you know, can you work with this person or this person? And they all were very positive about the entire pool that people had to choose from. So do you see that spirit of cooperation lasting past? Maybe 1 or 2 meetings? No, no, I honestly don't. I just, I think there's a lot of personalities. Anytime you have a council, there's a lot of, triple A personality types, and they have their own ideas and their own constituencies that they're trying to to, support and their positions that they're trying to bring forward. And unfortunately, like, if you look, the last council was united against the mayor. That was the only thing that seemed to unite them. And when you read the provincial report, the inspectors report, there seemed to be a lot of reasoning for that. But they went really extreme, like it's only been a couple of years. And that council not only sanctioned the mayor, made her stay in her office, had to infill everybody in the world for any emails, and had half her pay cut. And they started as a very united group picking a new CEO together, collectively, collaboratively. And it seemed like they were going along smoothly. And all of a sudden, this mayor and the council were so much at odds that, they wouldn't even allow her to do do the job, wouldn't allow her to represent Medicine Hat at public functions. I mean, it was just enormous, the the the position. So it may take I don't think two meetings is maybe fair. It may take two years before I think there will be a bit of a division that once again that, they just find that there's too many things that are dividing them and they're not able to collaborate as much as we would hope they could. So if you look at it like, survivor, the TV show, and you looked at the eight people on the island around the council table, do you see some alliances forming there? Oh, absolutely. But I think what's nice about municipal politics is your alliances are fluid. That's one of the reasons slates are so bad is because those alliances are supposed to be set in stone. Whereas when you have individuals elected, as independents, they can be flexible. So if this particular policy suits them, they can go that direction, etc.. So we will see that. And we did see that to an extent in the previous council where on certain issues we would see them binding together and other others they would. And the big thing that bond them was, was against the mayor. They just felt that the mayor was was not functioning suitably. And so I hope that's not the case coming forward. But there will be other issues. And unfortunately, as humans, we all have that that tribal knowledge that says, wait a minute on this issue way, way back here, you didn't support me, so why should I support you on your issue at this point? And you run into that for sure. When you look at, who was elected, do you see any influence from, special interest parties that we talked about in our first visit back, in August? Sure. There's obviously some very strong UKIP's supporters members, and there will be, that influence. There are some progressives that we would consider, progressives that don't have an affiliation per se, but they do have an ideological link. I would anticipate in some cases those were clash. They will, have a problem. One of the things that was also pretty evident is that there was council members in the previous council who tried to ingratiate themselves with the premier and with the UCP just on, even on a meeting by meeting basis, you know, they would jump out in front and, oh, and I had a discussion with the Premier, and they would bring it up at the next council meeting to show influence. And that's that's not going to be missing in this time. It's just human nature. A lot of these folks have political ideas, ideations that they can continue to go on and maybe, well, become the mayor or become a MLA or whatever the case may be. So we can't, preclude some conflict in that way. Do you see a group of five banding together to control how things go through council? Well, I do think it'll be more selective than that. I think there would be some issues where we will end up with of of a four and four, and the mayor will have to break the tie. There will be some five, five threes that go through. I'm not sure if we'll see that consistently because there is I don't know if they really have agendas per se, but they do have positions that they've taken over the years that would be more reflective of this rather than the that. And you know, the homeless, issue that the Mayor Clarkson dealt with extensively and was very proud proud about we as a city I think we were proud about it when that issue comes up because, you know, obviously, security in the community, etcetera, has been discussed quite extensively when that homelessness issue comes up against. I would be very surprised if he changes spots and says, well, no, homelessness isn't important anymore. So he would think that there would be that consistency for for as an example, the the new members, the five new members, I just say, well, they could be anywhere over the the agenda and they could be here, there and everywhere. They've got to establish their positions. And I think they would be fairly flexible and open to persuasion from the other member, which which is what democracy really is about. If they can get in there and discuss things. Well, we're also they're bound to be things that we can't predict. You know, we didn't, some of the committees, the civil committees, some of the individuals within the community that suddenly caused a lot of dissension. Will they show up again? Will, you know, someone have moved somewhere, relocated? Will other people take that position over? That can have an enormous impact. It it's surprising how much it can have just one individual who really gets it in their teeth that they want to do something, can get really do a dissension on something. When it comes to, setting committees and chairs of committees, that's where the mayor can maybe influence things. So I'm wondering who out of these eight she's going to favor. Well, now, the last council changed her powers in that regard, didn't they? But I don't know if she gets it, gets back or is able to get them back, because that was one of the things that was, discussed fairly extensively to remove her from that, that responsible that even before the August debacle that that caused a lot of the other dissension, they were taking her powers away from her in that regard. And I'm not sure if the bylaw still exists or will be changed, because traditionally, you're right. The mayor had a choice of saying these are the the power brokers. We're going to put these folks where I want them on certain committees. These folks think like I do. So well, I put them on these powerful committees. Or will I put them on the less important committees that exist? And there's such, such a lot of committees, of course. And, and some folks are buried because of the committees they end up on. Other folks are brought to the fore because these have a similar belief. But I'm not sure if that still exists. If anybody has changed that, I don't think it's been changed. Will it be changed? Might be one of our first topics and issues. Well, then we go back to the traditional system or not. One of the big questions in the campaign was many were promising 0% property tax hikes over three years. Can this group stick to that? No. Nobody can stick to that and actually effectively run run the city if you want the city to grow, if you want it to be, progressive and attract people from outside, which everybody has said as well, you can't stagnate the internal growth of it, so you can't live with the services that you have. You have to provide more, and that means more taxes. I don't think, everybody comes forward with, the promise of less taxes, less taxes. Even the province said we're if we're going to increase taxes, we're going to have a referendum to do that. But if you know our our education tax went up 14%, Medicine Hat and various other communities even more so. And there was never a referendum on that because it's collected by the municipalities and it's buried in there. And the province just sort of put it to the side. Although this is this is not really an increase, but it was an increase. And, so there's ways to get around that. When it comes down to those number crunching, there's so many demands, so many considerations. And on a general basis, even through a trend, through the aspect of inflation, 2%, you still have to increase something or fire a whole whack of people because those that's where you're be at least 80% of the, of the municipal expenses are our salaries and benefits. And the other 20% is so minor that it's like you have to nickel and dime everybody to do that. And it almost becomes a, an exercise in frustration more than anything else. Be interested in your take on how some of the candidates ran their campaigns. Anything that you went, oh, that's interesting or oh, that was a mistake. Well, some candidates got right out there and put the signs up and we're very high profile other candidates, not not so much. They decided that it would be, if you want me, I'm here. I've been approached. And I mean, in some cases, it was effective. In some cases it wasn't effective. There were some candidates that I thought, gee, I wouldn't like to seen them get a chance if some young business people, a few things of this nature that presented themselves very well, the debates. Really hard to differentiate yourself in a debate when you've got half of the council rendered on the on the table, it just it becomes almost impossible to do that, especially with a two minute time frame and things of this nature. And how many of the community actually have the time to sit and watch all of those debates and all of the presentations? I was kind of impressed with some of the web sites that they had created. I thought that some of them were very good, some were pretty rudimentary, but some were quite good. And it kept your attention a little bit when they're when they're well done. So yeah, I think that's obviously the the age of the future, social media having good contacts and social media, which I think benefited some folks. There is no issue in this election that you were either on this side or you're on that side. And it was so polarizing that it made the difference for everything. I mean, we have the, Mr. Control Council discussions and all these sort of things, but nothing that was so strong that if you said this, half the population would object to it. And, you know, vice versa. So I think there was a lot of good initiatives and, nothing that I would say that put that person over the top. Name recognition is important. Credibility. In the past, you know, the three councilors who had previous experience and are back on, I think there was a recognition that they had done good jobs in the past and needed that a little bit of experience and kind of a nice balance in there. When you think of experience versus new for new people. One of the things I always like to look at is, the number eight position and the number nine position you got in, you didn't make it. The number eight position, was, captured by Brian Varga. I think he had, I'm trying to think of my math here. In 2018, he won with 6115 votes, finishing eight. Okay. This year, 3870. So almost half the number of votes. Interesting. But, yeah, he had more votes when he lost in 2021 than he did this year. So I don't know how you. Yeah. When you go into a campaign, you're thinking, well, I don't care if I'm number one, I just want to be number eight. And that was what we heard. A lot of the candidates say. But yeah, in any given year, how many do you need to be number eight. And how do you figure that? It varies every year because it depends on the first seven. How many the first seven get. And how many are hived off by the last. Well, total 39. Saw the other group. Right. And that changed the math completely because, in 2018, when he ran, there was probably 24 or 21. I'm not sure if you have that math or that that number, but there was a lot less than the 39 that we had, I think this time. And I still think that that 39 is a good thing, because it does show enthusiasm and interest in, in democracy and in medicinal politics and things. But yeah, it's a bit of an apples and oranges argument when you think of it, because all those 39 got certain votes, there was nobody that got zero. And if you had 21 candidates, it could change the math completely based on the top eight, even though it's still the top eight. That just a he got half the votes he got in 2018, but he still and this time he won. I'm not sure what he did in 21 other than the fact that he didn't get in, but I'm not sure what his numbers reflected. Then in 2021, he had 5283 votes. Interestingly. Yeah, yeah. It's just one of those like you. It's it's number of candidates, mathematical probabilities. And I it's pretty convoluted. I think you. Just have to check your Ouija board. Yes. Yeah. Yeah I hope for the best. The other one that I wanted to get your thoughts on was Robert Lewandowski, a long time counselor? 114 votes short. Yeah. Why? Well, I mean, he was on for 21 years. And, I would have to say that most people see he had a very credible experience, etc., but none of the, the, the candidates that were from the previous council, got it. None of the incumbents made it. And, I would have to say, when people go to vote, I think name recognition is is huge. And there's times when you go and you say, gee, I recognize that name, but I don't remember why or when or how. Yeah, yeah. But I think in this particular election when people voted and they recognize a previous councilor from the last, the debacle that that we had, I think that made a huge difference. Lots of people looked at that August 21st, I think it was, meeting and they went online to look at it, and they thought the mayor didn't seem to be that out of line with her questioning. Why was this council, why did they act so draconian? Why did they take those really strong positions and sanction the mayor? Tell her she couldn't get out of her office. Had the emails as a cut, her pay in half. You know, all those things seemed really extreme. And then when the court decided a year later that they had acted over, overreacted, it tarred the entire council, I guess, in that way. And I think unless you're reading and looking at all the council meetings and going through an analysis of everything, the general electorate doesn't have that time to do that. And I think the name recognition is okay. I remember him, I remember what happened with the mayor, I disagree, I am for the mayor or whatever. And and I like that. That's that's the only thing is basically because he ran a good campaign. As far as I know, he seemed to be, together with it. He's, you know, intelligent, well sort of person. He's been on for 21 years. That's the only thing I can think of is that he was an incumbent and people said incumbent. Nope, nope. We're not going to have any company. And yet the mayor was victorious. She survived. She's seated. And she was the only survivor of the of the group. Even, and Mayor Grogan who ran for mayor was like force, I think. Yeah. That's right. So it was like, yeah, they're sort of taking that position. Well, we have another four years to think about this and plan for the next one, but the next 1st May not be a civic election. I wanted to get your thoughts on the storm clouds that are brewing in Ottawa before we leave. There is a budget that is coming early in November, and if it fails, yeah, falls again. So the November 4th, budget will be a confidence vote for the government. So if, under responsible government, if, if the of course, they don't win that election, that vote, the prime Minister is required by tradition, there's nothing in the law that says you have to do this, but by tradition, he must go to the governor general and say, sorry, we need to call another election. Now, I don't really think anybody wants an another election. The conservatives are a are a political juggernaut when it comes to funding. They have the money to do another election. None of the other parties do. They're all in debt. They all have a vote. They're still paying off the last election. The NDP is in the middle of a leadership race, so they don't want it. The Bloc Quebecois would do it as a symbolic gesture that they they aren't happy because Quebec wasn't getting something favorable to them. But all they need, I think there's 169 liberals. They need 2 or 3 more seats, two more votes to to win it over. And I would have to say that the NDP would be the logical group to go to. And it's not that everybody's going to agree with the budget. The budget's going to be austerity, budget going to be very difficult. The Prime Minister is said, you know, it's going to be difficult, folks. You're going to have to, you know, tighten your belts and you're going to have to suck it up because there's no more money. We're going to increase national defense. And we have all these other aspects we have to the people in the steel and aluminum industry need to get some benefits because, they've been, you know, the the terrorists have just killing them, etc.. Automotive industry is going to need some benefits. It's going to be on on the farmers in the West. The soybean farmers are going to need some something to help them make it through to the next season. Unless we get rid of the the tariffs that we're putting on Chinese import electric vehicles. And that's probably not going to happen, because that will make Donald Trump mad again and then won't be allowed to do so. I don't think we're going to be it's going to be a squeaker. I would I would suggest the conservatives, by their very, position as the official opposition, cannot simply say, let's, let's vote, for this liberal liberal bill and give him it, give him a chance, give them a break. That's not how the parliamentary system works. It's an adversarial system. It's designed to be partizan. It's the way it is. Which is why we shouldn't have slates in cities. Because it makes it partizan. It makes it, a completely lack of, collaboration in many, many cases. So I would say that he's going to squeak it through. And then we'll have to see exactly what's in it, for that matter. The interesting thing, of course, is in Parliament, they've already said what we're going to do, and they've never even seen the bill. You know, you know, and this is what's the problem with the parliamentary system to a large extent is it is adversarial. It's designed to be Partizan and you're not going to as a conservative, if you voted as a conservative for this bill, as a outrider, you would not be the representative of the Conservative Party in your riding the next time around. That's that's how it's done. And the Americans are just picking this up where we've had it for forever. The Americans of, have decided that, oh, we can we can do this. I actually in the nomination process and then they'll people and thanks to Donald Trump, he is a pressure at his own party that way. And they end up with the MAGA group. Always something to talk about with Jim Graham regard political scientist from medicine that college we could go on more but I think for now we'll just, say thank you and see you next time. Thanks very much, Brian. Nice to talk.