Council chooses byelection to replace Smeaton

Former Councillor Eric Smeaton’s vacant Ward 5 seat will be filled by having a byelection.

After listening carefully to a report from City Clerk Cathie Ritchie detailing the options, council unanimously endorsed a byelection that will see a candidate in office sometime in the late winter or early spring of 2025.

Ritchie’s report, which drew extensively from the Municipal Act, 2001, said that council had four choices to replace Smeaton.

The first was the appointment of the second-place candidate from the Ward 5 race in 2022. The second option was a simple appointment of a qualified individual by council without a formal selection process or applications. The third was the appointment of a candidate after calling for interested parties, applications and competitive public interviews at an open session of council. The last was a byelection in Ward 5 open to all qualified residents.

Smeaton resigned from council for personal reasons on Nov. 1.

Councillors agreed quickly that a byelection was the route to go. Most of the ensuing discussion was about how people would be able to vote and what timelines might look like.

“A byelection just makes sense,” Councillor Pat Warren said. “It is just more democratic.”

Deputy Mayor Charlie McDonald agreed with Warren adding, “Two years left is a long time. I think a byelection would be an appropriate way to find someone.”

Councillors Dan Joyce Ron Ashmore, Tracy Richardson and Mike Perry expressed similar sentiments, but Joyce and Ashmore did have specific questions about how it might be run.

“With a postal strike on,” Joyce said, “how do we handle the logistics of running a byelection where a piece of paper will need to be mailed to all electors in Ward Five with their code for internet voting? How do we get that out to all residents?”

“The bylaw to hold the election will be proclaimed at a special council meeting on Jan. 14,” Ritchie said. “Hopefully the strike will be over then. We will address contingency plans as needed, (and once we have direction from council) will come up with something over the next few days.”

Ashmore wanted to know if there would be an option to vote in person using a paper ballot, something the city has moved away from in the last two municipal elections.

“I think there would be a lot of support for a paper ballot,” Ashmore said. “We could use somewhere in Lindsay like the Armoury on election day.”

Ritchie told the councillor that the addition of the paper ballot increases the cost of a byelection. Deputy Clerk Joel Watts shared with council that a hybrid election featuring paper and internet balloting recently held in Cambridge was estimated by that city to have cost the municipality $100,000, while the internet-only byelection for Ward 5 is estimated to cost Kawartha Lakes between $20,000 and $30,000.

For the sake of interested potential candidates, Warren asked for an approximate timeline of how the byelection might play out.

Using the maximum number of days allowed by the Municipal Act, 2001, for the nomination process to occur and the campaign to be fought the election could take place as late as the Easter long-weekend.

“Voting over Easter is not recommended,” Watts said. “There (also) might be the possibility of a provincial general election in the New Year and we wouldn’t want our dates to conflict. We also need to be aware that the federal government could fall at any time. Ideally, we will be looking at an election late-March or early April.”

Watts added that interested candidates can start to file immediately after the byelection is declared Jan. 14.

Joyce wondered who would be representing the voters in Ward 5 at city hall with their council seat likely to remain empty for another four months.

Mayor Doug Elmslie encouraged Ward Five voters to call either himself or McDonald between now and then for assistance with municipal matters.

Interested individuals can contact the clerk’s office for more information regarding this byelection by calling (705) 324-9411 extension 1295.