Mélange à quatre

The recent ‘meet the candidates night’ with mayoralty hopefuls, Bennett, Fedeli, Marceau and Wright, left me with as many questions as answers. Once again Sudbury, with 14 candidates for mayor, has surpassed us since we could only muster four people willing to run for the mayor’s office. At least our candidates have stayed out of jail – so far! Making wild political promises does not yet fall under the criminal code so our people are safe.

As could be expected, the front runner took a few shots across his bow, but he managed to duck most thrusts by his opponents. One of the best lines of the evening was when he was sized up as not being the Goliath he was touted to be. In fact, the David of the quartet thought he could take him in the gym!

There was some suggestion that the front runner did not have the experience needed to be a politician. But the slick way a news flash about Bombardier bringing back half a dozen employees to do winter maintenance on the water bombers was played up, one has to admit was as political as motherhood and apple pie. In fact the one person with political experience stumbled on a question that any budget chief should have known.

The lack of political experience showed occasionally in the two other candidates, but their sincerity made up for a lot. Expressing the need for infrastructure repairs in terms of his truck not lasting long enough to see the capital roads projects in nine years was something we could all relate to.

It was refreshing to see that one candidate had done his homework on the finances and actually could explain the Bond rating system to us mere mortals. But again, it was one of the neophytes who commented that just because the City could borrow more money, did not mean it should.

The ABC question arose again, as it did the previous night with the council candidates. There was agreement on the need for better management, but the front runner’s claim that hundreds of thousands of dollars could be saved by not paying directors was not substantiated. In fact, it turns out that council has already taken some steps to reduce pay where the statutes allow. The ABCs will be relieved when November 11 finally rolls around.

The dream-peddling about what each candidate would do to bring wealth and prosperity to the city was nice, but if we had had one more reference to the Air Base Properties or the Lake Link I think the master of ceremonies would have stepped in waving a white flag.

All the talk about boats and planes and nothing about trains left me wondering if the candidates had been unable to catch up with the interim head of the ONR for an interview. The future of the ONR was the source of a biweekly letter campaign by the last council. I guess if the chair of the ONR can only charge ‘northern’ Ontario rates for his advice, it may have not been worth pursuing.

But the real question is who to vote for on Election Day. I can see qualities in each candidate that I would like to see in our new mayor. I like the practical experience factor of one, the vision and attitude of another, the common sense and humour of a third and the business acumen in the other. If we could only make a mélange of the four of them we would have another near-perfect mayor.

I was thinking of voting for all four candidates but I read that the technocrats at City Hall have a ballot counting system that will reject my multiple votes.

Ah for the good old days when we could spoil our ballots – or at least confuse the scrutinizers with X’s marked out of place! Or clog the system with paper chaff and decide Florida-style after the fact who we wanted in office. It is getting to the point where the only fun left in an election is candidates’ night!