Co-op's Ambush of Candidates

The Co-op ambush of candidates during the civic election last November violates an important principle.

Candidates in a civic campaign are not talking about the policies of a party. They are there to stand as representative of their community and the only promise that matters is the pledge they should make to listen to all points of view and to decide issues in an unbiased fashion.

The Peninsula Co-op's action tried to force candidates into saying whether they did or did not support a development proposal that hadn't yet been made. This means we had to comment without benefit of the wisdom of our neighbours who sit on the Advisory Planning Committee; without the recommendations and comments of experienced and knowledgable district staff and without ever having had the chance to listen to concerns during a public hearing process.

And, as anyone knows, what ever we said would have been held/used against us after the election.

If you truly want good governance, you have to uphold fairness during election campaigns too.