There were forums for Kelowna mayoralty candidates this year but none for city councillors. This was the Chamber of Commerce forum on Oct. 4 with, left to right, Tom Dyas, Mayor Colin Basran, David Habib, Silverado Socrates and Glendon Smedley.

(ROB MUNRO / iNFOnews.ca)

While there are a number of all-candidate forums throughout the Thompson-Okanagan featuring people running for mayor, council or school board, Kelowna appears to be the exception.

There will be three mayoralty forums before election day on Oct. 15 along with one school trustee event that was held earlier this week.

There are none for the 32 people running for eight city council seats. In the last election, in 2018, there were at least four.

“There’s 32 of us,” candidate Gord Lovegrove told iNFOnews.ca. “There’s just too many. We (candidates) were kind of bantering around: OK, give each person five or 10 minutes to make a little presentation. I said: ‘Guys. We’ll be here till midnight. We can’t do that.’’’

Lovegrove is one of two non-incumbents running for city council this year. He also ran for council in 2018.

He finished ninth in 2018, about 1,500 votes short of a seat. Amarjit Singh Lalli also ran in 2018, finishing 11th some 2,500 seats short.

Loyal Wooldridge was the only non-incumbent elected in 2018, finishing eighth with 12,495 votes.

Lovegrove isn't concerned the public doesn’t have a chance to see candidates in action at a forum in order to try to evaluate how they will perform in council chambers.

“What, so they can see what you’re like in front of microphone and can you put some coherent thoughts together?” he said. “Can you think on your feet? Can you banter back and forth?"

That doesn’t really indicate how you will perform in council chambers, Lovegrove argued.

“To me it (council) is very much a forum where it’s not so much of a debate – although I like to see some of that. It’s good discussion among colleagues. It’s more collegial,” he said.

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Without the forums he’s hearing from people that they’re having to do more reading of candidate’s platforms.

“I actually think that the written word – the pen is mightier than the sword – sort of thing,” Lovegrove said. “Folks have to do their homework. Therefore candidates really have to pack their punch into a well written response to questions from the press. I think that’s going to be the deciding factor. Plus, this time, we’ve got a lot more vocal – in the sense of well publicized – endorsements. That seems to me to be carrying the day more than anything else.”

He and Wooldridge are two of the three candidates who have received endorsements from the three organizations that, so far, have issued them. Those endorsements were made by Liveable Kelowna, the North Okanagan Labour Council and Citizens for a New Performing Arts Centre. The other one to receive endorsement from all three groups was Davis Kyle.

“I don’t know how effective endorsements are but I do think it’s important to have a broad reach in terms of appeal,” Wooldridge told iNFOnews.ca. “I try to remain connected throughout the community with different groups so I’m not siloed into just one. I engage with the arts community. I engage with the labour council and unions and the Liveable Kelowna group.”

What he’s finding, in the absence of forums, is that people want to do more than just read what he has to say.

“Millennials, and a little bit younger, are wanting to see more high level what you stand for and then drill down to what that actually means, if it’s interesting to them,” Wooldridge said. “What I found is, I got people reaching out from the written form to email me and say: ‘Can you expand on this or where did you get your numbers for this statistic?’”

In the absence of forums there have been three public meet-and-greet sessions so far with a fourth scheduled to run from 6 to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 11, at the Green Gables Daycare at 228 Valley Rd.

“I do like the trade show style,” Wooldridge said. “I definitely don’t think it shows what the performance would be, say, in a debate setting. The folks that I’ve talked to are more interested in knowing what your values are, what your priorities are and they have a bit more of a conversation around what matters to them.”

This is the second consecutive election that the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce has not hosted a forum for council candidates but it did host one for mayoralty candidates.

READ MORE: Basran booed at Chamber of Commerce mayoral forum

“We’ll take a hard look at a council forum next time around,” chamber executive director Dan Rogers told iNFOnews.ca. “It’s difficult to get exposure when there is no forum.”

The logistics of handling 32 candidates makes that a real challenge.

 — This story was updated at 8:47 a.m. Oct. 11, 2022, to add Davis Kyle as one of three candidates endorsed.

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