I ran in the 2022 Sooke Municipal Election as candidate for council. The final results are now in confirming what we knew by 10pm on Saturday night... I was far from elected. Congratulations to everyone elected. All incumbents running were re-elected, so apparently the majority of voters have been happy with performance. The only "new" council, is Kevin Pearson - former incumbent - so yeah name recognition was probably a big factor this election.

Was a pleasure running with and against y'all, had some great chats both with candidates and at door steps. I had intended to get out to all the doors but made some decisions that impaired that and then got Covid so really didn't achieve it. That said... I'm not going anywhere, this is my home town and I don't have any plans to move, and I love politics and care deeply so look forward to seeing people at community meetings and council functions in the future.

Also learned a lot, about people, about weird details of history from talkative folks and about myself - door knocking isn't just something I do (federal/provincial politics), it is something I love. Federal and provincial has so much partisan stuff that often conversations either don't happen or are entirely based on assumptions about parties that might have been accurate at one point but doesn't match current platforms etc. But municipally? It is just a great conversations - in my thousands of doors knocked (and hundreds of conversations), I only walked away not feeling good about the conversation twice regardless of whether I thought they were going to vote for me. One of the extra joys of door knocking regardless of political level is pets, especially cats. Here's a very small sampling of the animals I met.

Learned quite a bit about campaigning/role of a candidate. Which when the next federal or provincial election occurs if I'm not running myself will help me support candidates better. Speaking of the future. I hope to see a lot more of some candidates of this election. Particularly was impressed by Anna Russell (who came so close to getting a council seat too! - congrats on the super well run campaign Anna!) and Lorien Arnold.

Below are some more random campaign pictures

Extra thanks to the folks that supported me beyond just voting from connecting me with people to encouraging me to run to discussing campaigning strategies. Special thanks to my wife, Suzi, election campagns are certainly busy times and she carried the slack for me. Also, for writing help/proof reading lots of thanks to Naomi.