Comments on: Comment is Free, but Facts are Sacred

By: Marsha Henderson

Sun, 05 Jul 2015 20:53:50 +0000

People voted in can be voted out again after their term, if their actual contribution doesn’t match their advertised one. That option isn’t easily available if the results of any governance changes don’t match their advertised hype. I’m looking forward to the community led governance study that Saanich will undertake, which has the potential to be a more wholesome process than the one ‘solution’ to vaguely identified ‘problems’ that’s being offered by special interest groups.

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By: Andy House

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 17:39:50 +0000

To correct the deliberately misleading and grossly oversimplified [mis]interpretation of Amalgamation Yes and Ms. Ewing Mr. Stonebank’s presents a far more nuanced analysis that is both accurate and far more objective than the stale propaganda of AY.
The facts are that the results of the various questions are not the overwhelming Yes that AY would have us all believe; far from it. In fact, only the City of Victoria vote to gobble up whatever it can in a voracious pursuit of tax money is distinctly, unequivocally a Yes vote. Which exactly what most logical people would expect – those who expect to, or believe they will, benefit are in favour. Everyone else, not so much.

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By: Lesley Ewing

Sun, 05 Apr 2015 19:56:15 +0000

And yet a further comment on this article. If one looks only at eligible voters, the election results would also call into question the validity of ALL the successful mayoral candidates.

Across the 13 municipalities, successful mayor candidates only received 18% of the votes from total eligible voters.

Central Saanich mayor received 21%
Saanich mayor received 18%
North Saanich mayor received 25%
Sidney mayor received 14%

So while it is agreed that voter turnout needs to be increased, the most important measure of the success of the referenda question(s) was the ratio of favourable responses to the # of eligible voters who actually voted, which was 75%

Cheers.

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By: Lesley Ewing

Sun, 05 Apr 2015 02:00:49 +0000

One more comment, to correct the misleading information in Stonebanks’ column:

Of the 80,000 voters who voted in municipalities where there was a question on the ballot, 60,000 of them voted YES. The actual % of YES voters was 75%.

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By: Lesley Ewing

Sun, 05 Apr 2015 01:54:28 +0000

Some very important statistics for your readers:

Overall, municipal election 2014 voter turnout in the 13 municipalities increased by 26%

Central Saanich voter turnout increased by 9.5%
Sidney voter turnout increased by 38.4%
North Saanich voter turnout increased by 28.2%
Saanich voter turnout increased by 40.9%
Langford voter turnout increased by 35.9%
Esquimalt voter turnout increased by 68.3%

Overall, for the 8 municipalities that had a non-binding governance review question on the ballot, voter turnout increased by 32.4%

Further information can be found here:
http://www.amalgamationyes.ca/voter-turnout—comparison-of-2014-and-2011.html

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