Before you dismiss an elector organization as a “slate,” ask the question that matters: who came first, the candidates or the community?
Around election time you start hearing the words “slate,” “machine,” and “bloc.” They’re used to suggest one thing: that candidates running together have given up their independence, will vote as a unit, and take orders from above.
It’s an effective line. It also gets how local politics works backwards.
Alliances exist whether or not they have a name
People with similar priorities find each other. That’s true in North Saanich, and everywhere else. Candidates who agree on farmland, growth, or taxes will share volunteers, recommend each other at doorsteps, and vote the same way on the issues they care about most. That happens whether or not anyone files paperwork.
A registered elector organization doesn’t create those relationships. It makes them visible. It puts a name on the alliance, puts its principles on the record, and lets voters see who stands with whom.
An informal alliance can do all of the same things with none of that transparency. So the label isn’t the risk. If anything, the lack of one is.
Two very different ways a group comes together
The more useful question isn’t whether a group exists. It’s how it started.
Candidate-led. A handful of candidates agree on a narrow agenda, then organize around it, often without a name. The candidates are at the centre, and the group exists to get them elected and move their program forward. In practice, it works like a small local party.
Community-led. Residents come together first, around broad and lasting values: protecting farmland and rural character, caring for the environment, spending responsibly, and respecting the community’s established planning framework. Only after that do they look for candidates who broadly share those values, and they endorse them as individuals.
The difference comes down to origin, purpose, and relationship. In the first model, candidates build an organization to serve their agenda. In the second, the community builds a vision and then recommends people it trusts to govern in line with it. Those people are still free to use their own judgment around the council table.
North Saanich Strong: vision first, candidates second
That second model is the one North Saanich Strong was built on. The community vision came first. The endorsements came after, and they went to candidates the organization believes will represent that vision well, not to candidates who created the organization for themselves.
Three questions to ask any group, labelled or not
Before October 17, ask every group and every informal alliance these three questions:
- What values drive it?
- Who sets its priorities: residents, or the candidates themselves?
- Once elected, are its candidates free to think for themselves?
A group with a name and published principles can answer all three in public. It’s worth asking why a group without one can’t, or won’t.
Advance voting: Wednesday, October 7 and Wednesday, October 14. General voting: Saturday, October 17, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., North Saanich Municipal Hall, 1620 Mills Rd.
