With 2½ weeks to go before White Rock’s byelection, it’s looking like candidates are on their own to get their platforms out to voters.
As of Monday, there were no all-candidates meetings scheduled prior to byelection day, Nov. 3 – and none in the works.
(Peace Arch News has posed a series of questions to candidates and will be running their responses in an upcoming edition.)
Officials with both the White Rock Business Improvement Association and the South Surrey White Rock Chamber of Commerce confirmed their respective organizations will not be hosting meetings.
“Traditionally, the BIA is a non-partisan organization, so we don’t get involved in politics,” executive director Sherri Wilson Morissette said Monday.
While the BIA did host an all-candidates meeting for the 2011 election, Wilson Morissette explained an exception was made last year after scheduled meetings by the chamber had been cancelled due to financial struggles.
It is unclear if finances played a role in this year’s decision. Chamber executive director Cliff Annable was not available to comment before Peace Arch News deadline Monday.
In the lead-up to the last byelection in 2009 – held to fill the seat left vacant following James Coleridge’s removal from office by the B.C. Supreme Court – at least two all-candidates meetings were held to help voters get to know more about who was on the ballot.
This time, nine candidates are in the running, vying for the council seat formerly held by longtime city councillor Mary-Wade Anderson, following her death June 26.
Advance voting is set for Oct. 24 and 30.
Council hopefuls are (in the order they will appear on the ballot): Pat Petrala, David Chesney, Bill Lawrence, Scott Kristjanson, Tom Willman, Grant Kane, Bruce McWilliam, Megan Knight and Graham Wood.