Prof says racism, sexism played role in election

There’s a level of “polite racism” in Brandon and in Canada, a political science professor said, after no visible-minority candidates were elected in Brandon’s municipal or school board election this week.

Seven visible-minority candidates ran for council and two for school board.

Brandon University Prof. Kelly Saunders said “systemic and structural racism” continues to play out across Canada and specifically in Brandon, while women are still facing an uphill battle getting elected.

“All these people of colour had great backgrounds and great lived experience and really good ideas about how they wanted to move the city forward,” Saunders said. “And … none of them got elected. You know, that’s not just a coincidence. There’s something larger at play here.”

She said the lack of women being elected to council is also a concern. The only incumbent councillor to be ousted was a woman, Heather Karrouze. Norah Woychyshyn, who is entering her first term, is the only woman on council now. Four women ran for seats on city council, out of 27 candidates.

All 11 members of council elected on Wednesday are visibly white, as are seven of the eight school board trustees, with one Indigenous candidate, Shawna Mozdzen, re-elected to the board.

“If we’re going to say that we embrace diversity, we need to walk that walk. Then we need people of colour on city council and in provincial legislatures and at the federal level,” Saunders said, speaking generally.

“The downside of all of this is not that we all suffer as a community, because the more diversity we have, the better off we are,” she said. “The better policies and decisions that we get, the more representative our political system is.”

The results from this election could also discourage other people of colour, or women, from running again in the future, she said.

Jay Mahida, who finished ninth out of 10 candidates in the school board election, narrowly missing being elected among the top eight, had posted about racism days before people went to the polls.

On Facebook, Mahida said he had come across comments suggesting people “shouldn’t vote for immigrants.”

In the post, Mahida — who is himself an immigrant — said he’s tried to stay positive, and that voters should instead be judging candidates on their character, actions and contributions.

“We teach our children kindness, respect, and inclusion,” he said in the post. “Shouldn’t we lead by example? Disagreement is part of democracy. Discrimination should never be.”

He also thanked the 2,572 people who voted for him.

Among council candidates, Sonikile Tembo, who finished second in a four-person race in Ward 2, said she didn’t experience any racism during her bid for office. She highlighted the need for diversity as part of her campaign, adding she had a “completely positive experience.”

Three Black candidates ran in Ward 2, including Tembo, Buchi Onuke and Sunday Frangi, and they received a combined total of 421 votes. Deveryn Ross won the ward with 309 votes, just 77 votes ahead of Tembo.

Though Tembo said she did not personally encounter racism, she did see a lot of racism online directed toward the South Asian community.

Mayor-elect Jeff Fawcett said overall, he’s glad there were so many people who put their names forward, and that candidates not winning in their first run for office is common. Councillor-designate Tyson Tame, who was re-elected on Wednesday, had failed in his first two attempts for seats in 2014 and 2016, Fawcett pointed out as an example.

“I think that it is a great sign that people put their names up because they feel they’re part of a community and they want to be part of a community and to keep growing, and I hope to see that continue,” Fawcett said.

Fawcett said he hopes Brandon continues to be a city where everyone feels comfortable running for municipal office. He said it’s also difficult to defeat an incumbent councillor. Most seats had an incumbent member run for re-election.

“Full credit to everybody that put their name up … and I think it showed that Brandon is a growing city when people from all kinds of different backgrounds say, ‘I would like to put my name up. I’m comfortable in this city, and I want to represent it.’ And I think we’ll grow from that, too.”

Saunders said eliminating racism “begins with honest conversations” about it.

“Racism is alive and well in our community,” she said. “We might not like it. We don’t want to admit it, but it’s there and we need to be honest about how it plays out in every aspect of society, but certainly in politics.”

She said while all politicians experience hatred or violence, it’s especially the case for women and people of colour.

Voters overall still default to what they imagine as the “ideal” or “safest” politician being men, Saunders said.

“(Women) make up 30 per cent of all elected positions in this country, yet we make up 51 per cent of the population,” she said. “And it’s not that women aren’t interested, (or that) they’re not putting their names forward (or that) they’re not running effective campaigns. They’re just not able to cross that threshold.”

The co-founder of Her Seat at the Table, a local organization that provided support and encouraged more women to run for council, congratulated Woychyshyn on winning her Ward 9 seat.

“She’s done a really good job of educating herself and sitting in on council meetings, and she’s going to have a lot more things to learn,” Baker said. “And honestly, she might be a good resource for us as we talk to other people, and so we’re glad that Norah was elected.”

Baker said she would have liked to see more women elected for Brandon’s council, but that the HSATT group is happy with the progress it has made, including hyping up the election, which may have had an impact on higher voter turnout. Voter turnout went from 17.9 per cent in 2022 to 27.7 per cent this year.

The organization will also learn from this year’s election campaign, she said, and continue to meet regularly for future municipal elections.

“We’re happy with seeing some of the numbers that we did in regards to the women that were running this year. We’re kind of excited about where this will take us going forward.”

Woychyshyn on election night said she had been hoping more women would have been elected and that it will be a challenge being the only woman sitting on council. She added that she will “hold my own” in her new position.

The Association of Manitoba Municipalities is a press release on Thursday said a record-breaking 213 women were elected for local office across the province, accounting for nearly 25 per cent of all elected municipal officials. That compares to 20 per cent in 2022 and 2018.

AMM president Kathy Valentino congratulated everyone who was elected, but highlighted the higher number of women to win a position than in previous years.

“I’m especially pleased to see a record number of women elected this year. The AMM has made gender parity in municipal leadership a priority, and it’s encouraging to see this progress reflected in the results,” Valentino said in the release.

An AMM official wasn’t available for an interview on Friday, but the group sent a statement reiterating its earlier release.

» alambert@brandonsun.com, with files from Rylee Gerrard