Why I should vote for you

So here it is a mere nine days or so until Iqaluit holds its City Council elections. And you might ask, "Mr. Bastard, how many of the 21 candidates for councillor or the two candidates for mayor have come and knocked on your door, asking for your vote?"

The answer would be none. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Twenty-three people running for office and not a one of them as come a courting. During the last territorial election Elisapee and Paul were knocking on my door so much I might as well have started charging them rent. Yes, granted these people have to campaign in all of Iqaluit as opposed to just one-third of the place, like the territorial candidates had to. And yes, we live in a secure building, but the other two managed to find their way in, so I imagine if municipal candidates wanted to talk, they could figure out a way.

This is maddening because I have no idea who to vote for. Of all the councillor candidates I only know one personally - Brad Chambers who I curl with. The rest are unknown to me. Nor do I have much in the way of ideas what they want to do if they get elected to council. Unlike the recently wrapped up St. John's elections, there are no signs scattered all over the place letting you know who is running. Go here if you want to find the list of names.

Some do have posters stuck up in the usual spots - NorthMart, Arctic Ventures and the Post Office. Some do try to contain information about what they're running for, but call me crazy, but the porch of Arctic Ventures - with Bollywood music blasting to drive away loiters - is not the best place to gather information on municipal candidates. Besides, some of them are so maddeningly vague about what the person wants to do on council that the posters are completely useless.

So I've had a thought, which is always dangerous. I will open up this blog to any Iqaluit municipal candidate who wants to let people know why they're running for council. There are conditions, of course, but I am serious. If you're running, I want to know why I should vote for you.

So what are the rules?
1. Do not post on this thread. Email me at towniebastard (at) gmail (dot) com with your information. I will put up what you send me in a separate blog post.
2. I won't impose a word limit unless what I get is a silly length. If you send me the Illiad then expect to get a polite note back saying can you please trim this.
3. If you want to include a picture, I will run it, but please make it a sensible size. 200k is fine, it doesn't need to be 2 MB.
4. I want specifics in whatever you send. I don't want to read that you're awesome, a good listener and filled with spiffy ideas. Specifics. What do you want to do when you're there. What policies do you want to see brought in. What spending or cuts do you want? What's your opinion on a new swimming/rec facility for the town. That sort of thing.
5. I will not edit or correct spelling or grammar. Whatever you send me goes up as is. If I think something might be libelous, I will bounce it back to you and get you to make changes.
6. Things will go up on a first come basis. Also, I'm not hunting the candidates down. Feel free to tell them about this offer, but I'm not going looking for them for their platforms. So no one come whining to me that they didn't get a chance to put their views up here.
7. I don't believe blogger has the ability to post Inuktitut syllabics, although I stand to be corrected on that. So all posts have to be in English. Sorry about that.

And what are the rules for commenting? I have little patience with anonymous and abusive comments. Remember, I control what gets posted so if you try and put up an anonymous slag of a candidate that I feel is unfair, it will never see the light of day. So play nice. Ask questions and the candidates should feel free to respond. But if you're an asshole, you get cut off. Clear?

I'm very serious about this. If you live in Iqaluit and know the candidates, pass this on to them. I got 7,000 unique visitors to the blog last month and a decent amount coming visiting from Iqaluit. So you never know who you might reach.

Tell me why I should vote for you. Go.

Last Five
1. Living in a fog - Wonderful Grand Band*
2. Black helicopters (live) - Matthew Good
3. Stinging velvet - Neko Case
4. Mister Wrong - Lloyd Cole
5. Last of the American girls - Green Day