The Victoria Labour Council’s endorsement of Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin has left mayoral candidate Coun. Lisa Helps feeling frustrated and shut out of the process.
“I wasn’t even necessarily going to seek their endorsement because I assumed they would endorse the mayor,” said Helps, who added she made repeated attempts since February to meet with Victoria Labour Council president Mike Eso but was rebuffed.
“I simply wanted an opportunity to sit down with their president and hear the issues that matter to workers and I was not able to have that opportunity,” said Helps, who is challenging Fortin for the top job and was endorsed by the labour council when she ran as a councillor in 2011.
“I find it very frustrating and disheartening,” she said.
Eso said both he and Helps have busy schedules but there was no attempt to shut her out in favour of Fortin.
“We go into these things with an open mind. There are some people who get endorsed one time and not others and some people who don’t get endorsed in one round, in one cycle of elections, and they get supported in another.”
Eso said the labour council has an open-door policy and there was nothing stopping Helps from attending a regular monthly meeting. “They’re public meetings. We encourage candidates and public figures to speak. We always make an opportunity for that,” he said.
The process for endorsement is transparent and posted online, Eso said. A candidate must seek the Labour Council endorsement, fill out a questionnaire and be interviewed before recommended names are forwarded to the membership for consideration.
While there is some monetary support for candidates, that is not the primary focus, Eso said.
Fortin received more than $17,000 in campaign contributions from unions in 2011, including $4,000 from the labour council.
The labour council represents about 24,000 unionized members in Greater Victoria.
Just how much weight the endorsement carries is open to debate.
Norman Ruff, political scientist and professor emeritus at UVic, said a labour council endorsement in Victoria, which is known as a strong union town, can be a twin-edged sword.
“I think in Victoria it does [carry weight],” Ruff said. “It’s used as a shorthand for people who aren’t sure who to vote for. … So if you receive that endorsement, it sends out a clue to people who are looking around considering who to support.”
It’s certainly no guarantee of victory. Former Victoria councillors John Luton and Philippe Lucas were both endorsed in 2011 and both were defeated.
Jordan Bateman, B.C. director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said unions have disproportionate influence in municipal elections due to the traditional low turnout.
“These unions are extremely militant about getting their supporters elected and that’s all about one goal, which is extracting more money from us at the bargaining table,” Bateman said.
Bateman points to a recent Ernst and Young report compiled as part of the province’s core-review program that concluded salaries for municipal employees increased by 38 per cent from 2001 to 2012, while provincial public sector salaries rose between 19 per cent and 24 per cent during the same period.
Helps agrees there’s a problem with increasing taxes but doesn’t believe that’s necessarily tied to an increase in wages.
“Are salaries too high? I don’t know. Are taxes going up too high year after year? Yes and that’s where we need to focus. If it’s through salaries, fine, but my suspicion is we find cost savings elsewhere just by the nature of doing the business we do,” she said.
The only other mayoral hopeful to get the labour council nod was John Ducker, who is challenging Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins.
Seven of the 24 candidates for Victoria council, including Fortin, have been endorsed, including: incumbents Marianne Alto, Ben Isitt and Pam Madoff, former councillor John Luton and newcomers Erik Kaye and Jeremy Loveday.
Other candidates endorsed by the labour council include: Colwood Coun. Gordie Logan; Central Saanich Coun. Zeb King; Langford council hopeful Grant McLachlan and School District 62 trustee hopefuls Ravi Parmar and Jan Peever; Metchosin council hopeful Anne Richmond; Oak Bay Coun. Michelle Kirby and Oak Bay council hopeful Jan Mears; Saanich councillors Judy Brownoff and Dean Murdock and Saanich council hopeful Colin Plant.
