District 12 voting guide: A tale of two known quantities

The new boundaries for this upcoming municipal election will see a changed District 12, one with slightly more people than it should have. If District 12 were to be further divided it would require breaking up some “communities of interest.” And the city has been doing a lot of work in recent years figuring out where exactly the lines are around some of these communities.

Speaking of a lot of work, advance polls are open today, October 8, as of 8 a.m. and there are more of these to get out the door. And these, of course, are the district voting guides where, in order to determine which candidates running in District 12 would pay attention to detail and prevent past issues like bad mapping from causing issues in the future, The Coast sent out a substantial questionnaire to Candidates to see what each candidate knows about the issues facing the city ahead of the municipal election on Oct. 19.

And in District 12, we’ll start with the incumbent.

The incumbent for District 12, Iona Stoddard has had a decent rookie season. In her early years she made some rookie mistakes especially in 2021’s budget season, the year of the “Lovelace Gambit.” But Stoddard has shown steady progress as a councillor since then. In her responses to The Coast’s candidate questionnaire she demonstrated a strong understanding of the issues facing the HRM and the city’s plans to correct them. Stoddard was also a driving force behind the correcting of the Beechville boundary at a recent council meeting.

Although Stoddard has had a generally good council term, seeing her be more proactive in enacting policy solutions would be nice. In response to why Halifax’s budget is perpetually in a crunch, she wrote, in part “Our reliance on property taxes alone can only take us so far, and I would like to see more creativity from council and staff in this regard.” In answer to this question, other candidates have gotten far more specific about how creative they could get with tax reforms and fee changes. However, Stoddard has been more specific in some policies when she posted a questionable meme on Facebook.

Iona Stoddard’s website can be found here: voteionastoddard.com

The councillor for District 12 until 2020 when he came in second in that municipal election, is Richard Zirawski. As expected from someone with experience as a councillor, Zirawski had a good understanding of the issues facing the HRM, especially when it came to transportation and the environment.

Being strong on the environmental side is not surprising to anyone who paid attention during Zirawski’s first term. He tried for some bold climate policy changes like banning drive-throughs. For those who’ve never thought about it before, drive-throughs increase pollution, increase congestion, and increase road violence. And while it is true that having a drive-through window increases accessibility for those who can drive, having a world built around cars extremely limits accessibility throughout the city for about 25% of the population. In fact, thanks to Zirawski also being the driving force behind making the city declare a climate emergency, Halifax’s city staff are likely to include making drive-throughs a prohibited land use in the first draft to be debated in the first reading of the suburban plan!

However, there is more to being a councillor than trying to implement climate policy, and a second-place finish in 2020 suggests Zirawski could improve on the non-policy side of things.

Richard Zirawski’s website can be found here: Facebook

Has not completed The Coast’s candidate questionnaire. If candidates complete the questionnaire after the deadline of September 18, The Coast will attempt to complete a review in time for October’s election. Until then, we cannot determine if this candidate is worth your vote and would advise sticking to the known candidate in your district. If you would like The Coast to assess Taqi Hashmi’s potential as a councillor, please ask him to complete the questionnaire.

Taqi Hashmi’s website can be found here: taqihashmi.ca

Has not completed The Coast’s candidate questionnaire. If candidates complete the questionnaire after the deadline of September 18, The Coast will attempt to complete a review in time for October’s election. Until then, we cannot determine if this candidate is worth your vote and would advise sticking to the known candidate in your district. If you would like The Coast to assess Julie Scott’s potential as a councillor, please ask her to complete the questionnaire.

Julie Scott’s website can be found here: votejuliescott.ca

Has not completed The Coast’s candidate questionnaire. If candidates complete the questionnaire after the deadline of September 18, The Coast will attempt to complete a review in time for October’s election. Until then, we cannot determine if this candidate is worth your vote and would advise sticking to the known candidate in your district. If you would like The Coast to assess Janet Steele’s potential as a councillor, please ask her to complete the questionnaire.

Janet Steele’s website can be found here: janetsteele.ca

Analysis

District 12 will likely end up as a two-horse race between the two functional incumbents. Zirawski has a better track record when comparing motions passed at council, but both front runners struggle a bit with popularity in the district. Since District 12 is a five-way popularity contest with low voter turnout, if one of the other campaigns has strong organizing, one of the two previous incumbents could be in for an upset.