UMNB Pleased With New Municipal Election Date

A provincial municipal association is welcoming news of an official date for this spring’s postponed local government elections.

On Wednesday, the province announced that voting to elect local council, regional health authority and district education council representatives will take place on May 10, 2021.

“It is great news that we finally have an official date for the local government elections,” said Margot Cragg, executive director of the Union of the Municipalities of New Brunswick.

“What that means is that there’s some certainty for the folks who are currently serving on municipal council. They can finish up their projects and make decisions about whether or not to run again.”

The elections were supposed to take place this past May, but the provincial government postponed them because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the elections now postponed by a year, it means many municipal politicians who signed up for a four-year term will now be serving for five years.

But Cragg said it makes a lot of sense to have the elections in May instead of trying to hold them during the fall or winter months.

“Local governments are right in the middle of their budget cycle right now, which means that they’re making decisions about the money that they’re going to be able to spend for the next year. Those budgets are due November 30th, so it would be pretty inconvenient to have a municipal election right in the middle of that,” said Cragg.

It would also be challenging to hold the elections during the winter, said Cragg, when you have the risk of bad weather leading to lower voter turnout.

In the meantime, Cragg said several municipal councils have lost quorum or are at risk of losing it, meaning they do not have enough people to make decisions.

Back in July, the province appointed a supervisor for the rural community of Campobello Island after the council lost quorum two months earlier.

“There’s communities like Grand Manan that have 10 councillors. They’ve already lost four, which means that nobody can get sick, nobody can have a family emergency, nobody can miss a meeting or they can’t make decisions locally,” said Cragg.

She hopes the province will consider scheduling elections for those communities to help get their numbers back up.

Looking ahead to May, Cragg said she is optimistic the province will be able to conduct municipal elections safely, despite the pandemic.

“The good news is that we’ve had an example of running an election safely and successfully during a pandemic,” said Cragg, referring to September’s provincial election.

“Setting the date for May means that Elections New Brunswick has time to train workers on new technology, they have time to introduce new ideas to keep people safe.”

In a news release, the province said measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and to keep voters safe need to be in place next year, adding that lessons learned from the provincial election will be used to modify these processes.

Officials said extra time is also needed to train workers on new technology being rolled out which will “further modernize voting procedures in the province.”