Coalition creates scorecard for candidates in upcoming local elections across CRD

A local coalition of community organizations from across the Capital Regional District (CRD) have launched a new endeavour in an effort to assist residents in the upcoming local elections. 

The project is called ‘Livable CRD,’ and is being touted as a non-partisan voter-engagement initiative. 

This project will see Livable CRD send a questionnaire to all candidates on the ballot. If and when the candidates fill out and send these questionnaires back, the coalition will be uploading the results to their online ‘Candidate Scorecard.’

Once enough results are in, voters will be able to look at this scorecard to see which candidates viewpoints and platforms most align with their personal values. 

Some of the issues voters will be able to analyze at a glance through the scorecard include: transit, housing, arts, climate, walking, cycling, healthcare and good governance.

Grades will be assigned to every candidate who fills out the questionnaire for each issue. Those who would rather look directly at the candidate’s questionnaire resonances, rather than relying on the grades, will be able to do so. 

The goal of Livable CRD is to increase voter turnout and civic engagement with easy-to-understand information and resources.

Livable CRD says they will not endorse candidates, but instead, they will aim to make the candidates’ positions clear in a comparable format.

“Municipal elections are important, and we keep hearing from people that when they vote in municipal elections, it’s really hard to find out where candidates actually stand on issues,” said Michael Bassili, a Livable CRD spokesperson. 

“We are not telling anyone how to vote. We are doing the legwork so that every resident can compare candidates side by side, in plain language, before election day.” 

Bassili added that it can be nearly difficult to figure out who to vote for and why because there are just so many candidates.

The questionnaire candidates will be filling out was made in collaboration by participating coalition organizations, with each group contributing questions in its area of expertise. 

Livable CRD has already sent the questionnaire to candidates. Now, they are awaiting responses in order to begin scoring them. 

The coalition added that if and when a candidate declines to respond, that will also be documented. 

Results will be organized by municipality so voters can focus on the races on their own ballot.

“By collaborating with a wide coalition of community groups and advocates, we can craft a questionnaire that broadly surveys candidates ahead of the municipal election which should give residents the opportunity to identify candidates who resonate with them,” said Bassili. 

”Our coalition includes lots of experts, community organizations, and subject matter specialists which is why we’re putting our full weight behind this scorecard.”

Some member organizations of the Livable CRD coalition include Homes for Living, Walk On Victoria, Better Island Transit, Climate Justice Victoria, Family Doctors for Saanich, Better Transit YYJ, Greater Victoria Acting Together and Victori’us Arts.

Though no candidate questionnaires have been filled out or published by the coalition as of this publication, Livable CRD hopes that in the coming days and weeks they will be hearing back from most candidates. 

They added that all questionnaires received, per-municipality pages and full candidate profiles with letter grades will be published ahead of election day.

Check in with the Candidate Scorecard between now and election day on October 17th to see what candidates you want to vote for.