Minister of local government optimistic 'historic election' will draw more candidates

With the deadline to register as a candidate for next month's local government elections coming up on Friday at 2:00 p.m., there are still 45 positions with no one running.

There are 455 spots in total on ballots for newly amalgamated communities and rural district advisory committees as well as byelections in some long-established communities where changes have been made because of local governance reform.

Daniel Allain, the minister of local government and local governance reform, said he's optimistic more people will decide to run.

"I think people will know that it's important that we have candidates, it's democracy. If [we were in] other countries like Ukraine, we don't have that great opportunity," Allain said, speaking to CBC's Information Morning Saint John. 

He believes people are waiting to scout out the field before registering as a candidate. 

"It's a New Brunswick strategy to wait until the last minute," he said.

When asked about calls to delay the election, Allain said, "It's not an option, we have to move forward with this historic election, and I urge people to come forward and run.

Local candidate urging others to run 

Joey Bernard is running for a council seat in the newly created Sunbury-York South race, which has seats for a mayor and councillors. Bernard has been approaching people in the area and asking them to run. 

He sees it as a chance for citizens of newly formed communities to make change.

"People have the biggest opportunity to affect the way local government is going to operate now, because now is when everything's being set up," Bernard said. 

"After that, there will be history, there will be precedents, and it will be harder to make any meaningful changes."

Many uncontested races for mayor

As of Wednesday morning, 24 mayoral races have only one candidate, and so far no one has registered to run for mayor of Three Rivers.

This is sad, but not surprising, said Bernard, who sat on the New Maryland local service district advisory committee for more than half a decade. 

He said the process is moving very quickly.

"We're doing the entire province [at once]. That's a lot of work being put on provincial staff. And a lot of changes happening that, you know, normal citizens just don't have the time to keep up with."

Joanna Everitt, a professor of political science at the University of New Brunswick Saint John, said the number of candidates elected via acclamation will lead to low voter turnout. 

"For many of these communities, they've not had the opportunity of having representation in the past, they were the local service districts, which were kind of unrepresented," she said.

Political engagement from these citizens will take time, said Everitt. People in smaller communities need to become used to having the kind of representation available in larger urban centres, she said, then they'll be more willing to step into those leadership positions. 

Elections New Brunswick says numbers increase hourly

Kim Poffenroth, the chief electoral officer for Elections New Brunswick, said it's still a game of wait and see. 

"I don't want to panic, because things have changed a lot, even just since Saturday. So it's very much on an hourly basis that those numbers change." 

On Tuesday, 31 more people registered as candidates for the Nov. 28 elections. Poffenroth said more may be holding out to register at the last minute so they can get a better idea of their competition, which she says is not a good idea.

"I really discourage people from waiting to the last minute because of the hard cut-off at 2:00 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 28. If there's any irregularities in their nomination papers, if they've waited to the last minute, there's no opportunity to correct those," she said. 

Everitt said the nature of these elections lends itself to poor candidate turnout. 

"These are new communities, in many cases, they've had their identity switched and changed," said Everitt.

 "It's a step that's going to require some time."