It turns out that a 13-way byelection didn’t divide the city, after all.
Nanaimo voters were united in their candidate of choice, with Sheryl Armstrong winning election to city council in a landslide.
Some of us expected that with so many candidates, it would fragment the vote and add unpredictability to the race, but there was no drama once the numbers started to come in. Armstrong was Nanaimo’s clear choice. Many of us pegged her as the frontrunner, but her margin of victory has to be considered surprising.
“It really sends a message to me that I’ve got to work hard to keep the confidence,” said Armstrong, when I spoke to her the day after the byelection.
Her win means she’s joining city council for at least the next 15 months leading into the 2018 civic election. What else does it mean? What are we to gather from her lopsided win? That’s a more difficult question to answer.
It’s easy to come up with labels for any candidate: Armstrong is a retired RCMP sergeant and a 55-year-old woman.
I notice the five women who ran in the byelection delivered more than two-thirds of the vote and I think electing a woman was desirable. It’s most important to have the best councillor, but all else being equal, gender balance is a worthy goal.
Armstrong said she heard on the campaign trail that voters wished to “replace a woman with a woman” on council to restore more diversity. There, she draws from her experience with the RCMP. There were fewer women and ethnic minorities in law enforcement when her career began, she said, and while “there’s still a lot more” to be done, today’s RCMP better reflects the makeup of communities.
I suggested to Armstrong that perhaps her success at the ballot box is at least some reflection of public confidence in our local police.
“I really can’t say that, but I would like to think that,” she said. “The RCMP works very hard here with the different community partners, so I would think [they] do enjoy a very good relationship with most of the community.”
A biography in brief is enough for some voters and it’s tempting to pigeonhole Armstrong because of her policing background. But she never seemed to position herself as the law-and-order candidate, preferring to point to a range of priorities. To brand her now as the council cop would present an incomplete picture of what we can expect her to bring to her new role.
As for her campaign slogan, ‘vote strong’ would have been interpreted in different ways by voters. It could refer to a strong voice or strong convictions, but maybe it also suggested the strength to stand up to any conflict on council. Armstrong said really it was a slogan meant to make people remember her and her messaging.
“I do believe I have a lot of strengths [and] strength comes in lots of different ways,” she said.
In this summer’s byelection, 13 candidates offered 13 different adjustments to council. Voters overwhelmingly chose one, whom they perceived to be the strongest candidate, and who is now tasked with strengthening the leadership of our city.
editor@nanaimobulletin.com