Voters shortchanged by lack of real debate

“Democracy demands age-old values like citizenship and politeness … But democracy also demands a certain amount of friction. It demands argument. It demands that we stand up for what we believe in.”

— Former United States president Barack Obama

A few weeks ago, two candidates running in Brandon’s Ward 10 made a very public statement by launching a campaign focused explicitly on bringing civility and respect back to municipal politics.

The two individuals — incumbent candidate Tyson Tame and challenger Mitesh Patel — told CTV News that they intended to run a good, clean race, without the smear campaigns and political name calling that they said don’t serve the public very well.

“If I have to step on someone to win, then I hope I lose,” said Tame, who has served on Brandon city council since 2022.

“It’s not about who is better than each other,” Patel said. “It’s about what we can bring better for the City of Brandon.”

It certainly sounds like a refreshing idea — and a constructive step forward — when it comes to political campaigns. In an era where provincial and federal politics are often defined by personal attacks and hyper-partisan hostility, a local commitment to a fair, clean race is understandable.

We need only look down the road two hours to the Winnipeg mayoral race to see what can happen when political campaigns turn personal and rather nasty.

But as the fall municipal election approaches, this focus on extreme politeness has created a different kind of problem. What began as an effort to keep local politics respectful has seemingly turned into a collective agreement to avoid talking about difficult issues — and at precisely the wrong time.

That lack of political spark has also seemingly infected Brandon’s mayoral race. Incumbent Jeff Fawcett and challenger Len Isleifson are both running very quiet campaigns overall, choosing to avoid making any traditional campaign promises and instead offering voters some vanilla options on the ballot.

They attend community events, shake hands and maintain a polite public presence, but neither has put forward a clear platform that distinguishes them from the other.

Fawcett has been defending his first-term record of “heavy lifting” on taxes and financial stabilization as necessary for Brandon’s long-term growth. But his 2022 promise of making Brandon earn its status as Manitoba’s second city had so few metrics, it’s difficult to know whether we have achieved whatever vision he may have had in mind.

Isleifson, on the other hand, says he’s pushing for change in the city’s internal culture, specifically through multi-department operational reviews and more aggressive efforts at attracting new business to Brandon, as a means to increase the tax base. Yet his numerous posts to his Facebook page on these issues are long on pleasant rhetoric and short on details of how to achieve that.

And more often than not, the two candidates tend to agree with each other on issues facing the city. That’s not really surprising — Fawcett and Isleifson are friends and colleagues, and are in many ways cut from the same political cloth.

But when two people running for the highest office in the city do not have any visible policy disagreements, the election stops serving its primary purpose.

A municipal election is supposed to be a competitive process where different plans for the city’s future are openly debated and tested. It should not be a popularity contest where candidates simply try to avoid controversy.

By avoiding conflict to maintain a polite tone, the candidates are leaving voters without the information they need to make an informed choice. This dynamic risks worsening a problem that has plagued the city for nearly a decade: a severe crisis of voter apathy.

Election statistics from the City of Brandon show that civic participation has plummeted to historic lows over the last two municipal election cycles. In the 2018 election, voter turnout dropped to a staggering 16.86 per cent. Four years later, in the 2022 election, turnout barely shifted, crawling up to a mere 17.9 per cent.

To put that into perspective, fewer than nine out of 50 eligible voters participated in the last local election — a massive drop from the comparatively larger 42 per cent turnout recorded in 2014. When consecutive elections fail to break past an 18 per cent participation rate, it shows there is a larger disconnect arising between constituents and city hall.

Brandon faces several practical challenges that require the attention of both voters and our election candidates. The city needs to address its infrastructure deficits, find ways to build up local economic growth, manage community safety concerns in our downtown area and deal with a growing demand for affordable housing. We have had years of high tax increases (however necessary they have been), an ongoing drug scourge that continues to hurt the most vulnerable of our population, and as a result of decisions by two previous iterations of city council to develop Brandon’s south end and pay for a pair of lift stations, an escalating municipal debt that will take decades to pay off.

These are complex issues that cannot be resolved without thorough, public discussion.

Instead of presenting distinct solutions to these problems, most of the candidates have stayed silent on major policy decisions, leaving the public forum empty and voters questioning why they should even bother showing up.

Politeness is an important part of public life, but it is not the only metric of a healthy local government. By removing all friction from this campaign, Brandon’s candidates are preventing the kind of debate that a city needs to make progress — indeed, the kind of debates we should be having around the council table.

Civility is necessary for a functioning city council, but it cannot replace an actual political platform. Disagreement does not have to be toxic or disrespectful. In fact, structured debate is the only way a community can weigh the pros and cons of different policies before investing tax dollars into them. When candidates refuse to argue their points, voters cannot tell what a candidate truly prioritizes or how they will vote once they are actually holding office.

The current approach to the election directly feeds the public indifference responsible for the dismal turnouts of 2018 and 2022. When residents feel that there are no real differences between the candidates, or that the status quo is guaranteed regardless of their ballot, they are much less likely to show up at the polling stations.

A quiet election breeds public indifference, which is dangerous for local government accountability. If the candidates do not challenge each other during the campaign, they will not be prepared to face tough scrutiny from the public or their colleagues after they are elected.

I agree that voters do not want an aggressive, mud-slinging campaign, but they do need to see real policy debates in the public square. They need to be given a reason to vote.

Brandon deserves candidates who are willing to take clear stances on local issues, present contrasting visions for the city and defend those visions openly. Politeness keeps a campaign clean, but it takes actual debate to shake off years of historic voter apathy and move the city forward.

The candidates need to stop focusing on handshakes and start focusing on the issues. And for the rest of us, we should all be demanding better answers from our candidates.

» Matt Goerzen, editor