A former Kamloops Mayor, City Councillor and Provincial Cabinet Minister, who will be Radio NL’s political analyst on election night, has an idea as to why less voters tend to turn out for civic elections.
Speaking earlier on the NL Morning News, Terry Lake commented on why he thinks less of the electorate turns up. “The turn out locally is not as great as it is provincially or federally but it’s also true that the impact of local government is the highest on your daily life.”
As to why that may be, Lake has a great analogy. “If you ever doubt that, if your toilet won’t work properly because the sewage system’s not working properly, that will prove it.”
He says in provincial and federal politics there are political parties that voters are affiliated with but that isn’t the case locally. “In Kamloops at least we don’t have that on the local scene. Some cities, like Vancouver, do have parties but they’re not really exactly aligned with the provincial and federal parties and so it still doesn’t generate that much interest.”
Lake says provincial and federal politics doesn’t get the same type of coverage from the media. “When you’re watching the national news or the Global News out of Vancouver for instance, you’re hearing about the provincial race, you’re hearing about the party platform, you’re hearing about different people running for that party and so there is much more interest generated. It’s easier to find information.”
He says it’s different on a local level. “When you’ve got 30 individuals running for local council and school board, you know you can’t really form the same sort of unified opinion about those people because they’re all individuals and they don’t really represent a necessarily unified political philosophy so I think that’s the reason.”
“I don’t think it’s because the importance of the level of government because I think local government is in fast the most impactful on our lives so I wish more people would get out and vote locally but sometimes it’s difficult to know the individuals because they’re not associated with parties.”
Lake will be appearing on Radio NL’s Saturday night election coverage with our Brett Mineer and Jeff Andreas starting during the first intermission of the Kamloops Blazers game.
