Mayor voting guide: A Waye forward?

Halifax is guaranteed to have a new mayor after the election on October 19 because the incumbent, mayor Mike Savage, is not seeking re-election after 12 years on the job. Who exactly will replace Savage will be determined by us as we cast ballots by phone or online until October 16.

Or cast ballots in advance in-person polls open on October 12 and October 15, between 12 p.m. and 8 p.m. Or when we cast our ballot on election day, October 19, when polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. For more information on that, please visit Halifax.ca/elections.

The field of candidates vying to replace Savage is deep with 16 people stepping forward to put their names in the hat. A few months of knocking on doors and trying to garner support has seen some campaigns self-destruct. For example, many mayoral candidates did an “Ask Me Anything” on Reddit. Users asked candidate Riley Murphy about various social media posts where he’s hanging out with members of Diagolon and the two people arrested for harassing Robert Strang.

Murphy issued a press release which reads in part that “users circulated photos of Murphy with friends that some have deemed controversial, attempting to tarnish his reputation through guilt by association.” But Goldhawk Farms in Moser River was going to host a mayoral candidate event and decided not to include Murphy. In response, Morgan May said Goldhawk Farms didn’t “respect democracy” and told her followers that Murphy will be holding a BBQ nearby and recorded a video in which she doxxed the owners of the farm, encouraging her followers to make crank calls with the doxxing information.

But not to despair! There are also some strong candidates for mayor like rookie Nolan Greenough and Ross Rankin and thanks to 2015 being the last election using the first-past-the-post electoral system they both have a real chance of winning! Just kidding, that promise was only for federal elections, and electoral reform never happened.

Prime minister Justin Trudeau, who is still the prime minister and could work with the NDP to implement electoral reform, said on a podcast recently that not implementing it was one of his major regrets. RIP electoral reform. But in a hypothetical world where the federal electoral system changed, it’s likely provinces and cities would have followed suit.

In a world where Halifax had a ranked ballot in municipal elections, candidates like Rankin and Greenough would have a fair shake at being mayor. Both answered The Coast’s questionnaire quite well and have demonstrated throughout their campaigns that they’d both be good, if different, mayors of Halifax.

Unfortunately for them, the folks who are most likely to support candidates like those two rookies are also people who are quite well-informed on municipal issues and are more likely to understand the political realities of a first-past-the-post system.

These voters will see news stories with headlines like “Poll finds Fillmore leads race for Halifax mayor,” and then check out Andy Fillmore’s policies to see if they should vote for him too. In those policies they’ll see that Fillmore has a promise to freeze the tax rate—which is a promise he may not be able to fulfill from the mayor’s seat.

Fillmore’s flagship promise in the affordable section of his platform says that as mayor, he’ll “Freeze the municipal tax rate for two years while a comprehensive value-for-money audit on HRM’s service delivery is completed.”

He may not be able to fulfill this promise as it is likely it will struggle to pass at council. In an attempt to make a civics lesson more engaging, let’s game out a realistic scenario about how the freezing tax rate policy would play out during council.

At that meeting, staff would make a presentation and explain that it’s entirely possible to freeze the tax rate, and also that property taxes are based on property values. They’ll also explain that due to the property tax cap, even if property values decline, there’s still a lot of cap space to increase taxes before hitting the true assessed market value.

After hearing this news other councillors on our new hypothetical council would be aghast! Higher taxes! They’ll all chime into the debate to say they can’t support this. Whoever takes on the role of council jokester, a seat vacated by Tim Outhit, will chime in and make a joke about how freezing the tax rate would generate new revenue that the city could include in its budget.

There would be an uncomfortable silence in the room as chief administrative officer Cathie O’Toole and chief financial officer Jerry Blackwood shared a knowing grimace. One of them would chime in, and explain that due to things like climate change, inflation, labour shortages, or aging infrastructure, the tax freeze revenue probably wouldn’t be enough.

There would be much debate, and then our new council would vote to increase taxes. Though Fillmore may try to fulfill this promise, it would likely be discarded in the annual value-for-money audit on the HRM’s service delivery that council does every year when crafting the budget.

Outside of his platform and campaign promises, Fillmore also completed The Coast’s questionnaire. Though there were answers given in that questionnaire that did not show whether he is informed on certain municipal policies. Take for example, question number 16: The city of Halifax is undertaking some pretty substantial police reform. Can you please describe what the city is doing and where it is in the process?

A campaign spokesperson for Fillmore responded to that question saying, “because the first one sort of implies – everyone knows what the city is doing and where it is in the process – which unless you work directly on that internally it’s tough to in a granular or prescriptive way speak to that process you know?” While true, this was a questionnaire for a mayoral candidate to see what the candidate knew about police reform in the HRM.

Fillmore did then respond to the question and noted “the recent amendments such as the addition of a Commissioner of Public Safety acting as a liaison between HRM, the Halifax Regional Police and the Board of Commissioners is a positive step forward.”

This is not to discount some of the other candidates, like Jim Hoskins, Pam Lovelace or Darryl Johnson. They are being taken as serious contenders because they have a base of support, and in a municipal election with historically low turnout, organizing can play a huge role in deciding races. But as voters are becoming more informed, they are primarily going to Waye Mason, who’s gaining huge ground on Fillmore in the most recent poll.

And it’s pretty easy to see why Mason is gaining ground in the polls. Even though Mason’s mistakes have been quite memorable, they’ve been relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. Over his past 12 years on council, he’s proven himself to be a reliable legislator who consistently votes to make Halifax a better place. Mason had good answers to The Coast’s questionnaire and also put out a platform. His platform is a solid policy document which at its best aims to use municipal power to create affordable housing. But at a minimum at least Mason’s platform indicates he understands how the city works.

As a result, informed voters are coalescing behind Mason. The final decision on who will be Halifax’s next mayor will be made on October 19.