Head Tale

Shea and I went to the Sask NDP’s Coronation Park Nomination Meeting tonight and it was wilder than we ever expected – over 400 rowdy people crammed into Thom Collegiate’s auditorium to hear from three candidates – April Bourgeois, Noor Burki, and Chris Gust – and choose the person who will represent our home constituency in the next provincial election.

Shea’d picked her candidate ahead of time but I legitimately hadn’t decided who I was going to vote for as there were things I liked about all three of them. (As is often the case in contests of this type, you end up wishing you could put all candidates in a blender to combine the best qualities of each.)

But, since shoving human beings into large blenders is illegal, I decided I’d go to the meeting and make my decision based on their presentations, their shows of support as well as the impression I got from any pre-meeting contacts I had with the candidate or their teams as well as what I could find out about them via social media and online.

Another interesting thing to think about in contests of this type is the “constituencies within a constituency” and where candidates might draw the bulk of their support from – people who share a connection via their line of work or their involvement in the labour movement or their ethnicity or where they grew up or where they went to school or their community profile or where they volunteer or from former neighbours and so on.

For that reason, it wasn’t 100% certain but it was pretty clear that there was a large presence of people from Noor’s ethnic community at the meeting which seemed like it might make the final result a foregone conclusion before we even got out of the registration line.

Still, my understanding is that something similar happened in another recent nomination contest where one minority candidate had a lot of visible support but he ended up losing because many of those people were not resident in the constituency and only there for support but ineligible to vote.

But in the end, that wasn’t the case this time. The votes were counted and Noor Burki was chosen as the next Sask NDP candidate for Regina Coronation Park!

Anyhow, I can’t do a post like this without creating a list so here’s…

10 Random Thoughts From The Regina Coronation Park Nomination Meeting 

1. A long time ago, someone told me that all other things being equal, he would always vote for the person who helped bring the most diversity to the table as it helps make for better decisions when you hear the voices of people who represent the entirety of your community. I’ll admit that piece of wisdom was in my mind as I walked into Thom and was thinking about who I might vote for in light of the the changing demographics of this constituency, this city and indeed, this province.
2. One of the strongest presentations of the night was…the young woman who nominated Burki.  It made me realise that the future of this constituency is bright with engaged young people like that (let alone that she might’ve been a better candidate!) 🙂
3. I don’t officially attend political events with my “librarian” hat on (I did however have my “Read” hat on!) But I must say it was rewarding to see so many patrons I serve at my branch attending this event as well.  Civic engagement = cool!
4. I had to chuckle when I thought about how Noor Burki was the only candidate I hadn’t met or even heard from ahead of time.  But with the turnout he generated, it was clear he didn’t need to get my vote (call it the Barack Obama or the Jagmeet Singh or even the Ryan Meili v 1.0 strategy – if you expand the voter pool enough by selling new memberships, you don’t need to focus on convincing existing members quite as much, especially in a small constituency-level contest.)  Of course, it also made me realise that the tables were turned and this is often how minorities must feel – ignored, not needed, disregarded. (Good to be humbled every once in a while!)
5. Another thing that’s not the be-all and end-all of my decisions in constituency-level votes. But I do have a personal bias towards candidates who actually live in the constituency they represent so that was a plus for Burki in my eyes as he is someone who has lived here with his family for the past decade.  (I’m not 100% positive but believe the other two candidates grew up in Coronation Park and had deep family roots here but no longer live in the constituency.)
6. Not sure if this was planned ahead of time or requested from the floor.  But after the rules were explained in English, a gentleman got up and explained the voting rules in another language which was another nice touch to acknowledge and recognize the diversity of the crowd.
7. There were small variations I noticed in each presentation that I found revealing  – who acknowledged that we were meeting on Treaty Four territory, who made a point of thanking the NDP staff and/or the organizers of the event and/or the members of the constituency association.  (I didn’t get to the candidate tables but Burki’s was apparently giving out samosas which was a great idea as well.)
8. I can’t remember the last time I heard Ryan Meili speak in a setting like this but as someone who was conscious of the criticism that public speaking wasn’t Ryan’s strength when he got into this gig (hey, look what I wrote a decade ago, nearly to the day.) But tonight, Ryan gave an absolute barn burner of a speech that had the crowd pumped.  I don’t know if it was done consciously or not but he also did a couple things in his speech that showed he’d gotten even better at reading a room which has always been a strength of his in the past.
9. Kudos to Steven Lloyd who ran the meeting efficiently but also with a good dose of humour which I appreciated as compared to some of the more humourless Chairs you might encounter in meetings of this type.  Along the same lines, Warren McCall did a great job with his financial appeal.
10. This is pretty hypocritical coming from me because I freely admit I sat on my hands with regards to my involvement in the constituency during the last election when I was unhappy with the choice of Leader and direction of the party.  But I’m hopeful that supporters of all three candidates will find ways to stay involved and help win back this long-time NDP seat!