I read with interest the Post article about municipal candidates filing complaints against the CBRM’s returning officer with the provincial Ombudsman, although the first thing that occurred to me was that a call to declare an election “null and void” would probably have more weight coming from a mayoral candidateRead...
Status quo Membertou voters are apparently content with the council they have — yesterday’s vote saw Chief Terry Paul and 10 councilors re-elected. And one of the “new” faces on council — Anthony (Ike) Paul — served as a councilor previously (for 28 years, according to his bio). Electoral OfficerRead...
The ballots are counted, the verdict is in — and it’s time to wonk-out with the numbers from Saturday’s municipal election in the CBRM! Amanda McDougall won the CBRM mayor’s race on Saturday, with 47.4% of the overall vote (24,319 votes). McDougall carried nine districts — 3, 4, 5, 6,Read More
Membertou First Nation goes to the polls to elect a new chief and council on Thursday, October 22. There are only two candidates for chief — incumbent, Terrance Paul, who has held the office for 36 consecutive years, and challenger Edwin LaPorte — but there are 66 candidates vying forRead More
The coming of October goes not unheralded. Its harbingers are glorious – yellow, orange and red. They blaze across the hillside and flame against the sky. While summer, like September, has faded with a sigh. October has a beauty and a splendor that are rare. A crayon-colored prelude to November, bleakRead More
The problem with the voter assistance “kiosk” established in Eskasoni First Nation is not that it exists — the CBRM’s Alternative Voting By-law gives Returning Officer Deborah Campbell Ryan the power to establish as many polling locations as she likes (provided she has “at least one”) and to determine whereRead More
Vote often? I spoke this week with a Sydney resident who lives in a household of three registered voters that received five PINs for online or telephone voting in the municipal election. One was for a brother who, she said, has not lived in the house for 18 months, andRead More
The mayor of the CBRM is, on the one hand, just one vote out of 13 on all matters that come before council, and as I’ve noted before in these pages, the position is barely defined in the province’s Municipal Government Act (MGA) which states: “mayor” means the council memberRead More
District 1 includes the former town of Sydney Mines and part of the former town of North Sydney, plus the communities of Alder Point, Florence and Little Pond. It’s shaped — well, I’m seeing a ghost, but I see a bat in the map of District 12 and am startingRead More
District 4 encompasses part or all of Coxheath, Westmount, Prime Brook, Sydney River and Edwardsville. It is shaped like a hand writing with a rather blunt pen. The district is home to 7,215 registered electors, 3,813 of whom cast ballots in 2016. Steve Gillespie captured 1,325 of them to winRead More
