Livable CRD organizations speak to partisanship of candidate scorecard

In late July, Livable CRD announced the creation of a candidate scorecard for all candidates running in the capital region for the upcoming local election, but some residents are concerned about the endeavour’s partisanship. 

Livable CRD is a new coalition of local organizations who have signed on to help voters in Greater Victoria make more informed decisions on the candidates they vote for this October. 

To achieve this, the organizations involved will each be forming questions for a questionnaire that will be sent to every capital region candidate running in the 2026 general election.

Livable CRD spokesperson Michael Bassili says the initial idea for a candidate scorecard came from the group Victorians for Transportation Choice and grew from there. 

He says that other special interest groups working for change in the capital region then expressed interest, and the coalition has now grown to 12 organizations as of this publication. 

“We worked with our growing coalition to identify important categories and then proactively reached out to community groups across the region who would be well-equipped to craft questions for their specific categories,” Bassili told Victoria Buzz. 

Some of these groups include Better Transit YYJ, Family Doctors for Saanich, Walk On Victoria, Homes for Living and Common Horizon Victoria, who respectively work in advocacy around transit, health care, accessibility and climate. 

Each of the 12 groups involved have now contributed to the questionnaire which will be sent to declared candidates. 

If and when the candidates choose to complete the questionnaire, the individual groups will assign a grade to the candidates on their questions and a final letter grade will be given in 10 separate categories. 

Bassili noted that there are questions in the questionnaire that will not be graded, as they are subjective in nature. 

The categories include general, transit, housing, climate, arts, cycling, walking, healthcare, reconciliation and governance. 

In an effort to keep the process transparent, along with the letter grade on the scorecard itself, Livable CRD will be publishing all completed questionnaires for people to analyze for themselves.

Despite this effort, some voters in the capital region are concerned about the partisanship of the involved community organizations and what they stand to benefit from the process. 

Bassili says that Livable CRD itself is explicitly non-partisan and has vetted the questions on the questionnaire to be unbiased in nature. 

“Our partner organizations come from a wide range of political leanings and come with their own priorities, as one might expect, but all submitted questionnaire questions have been written to be explicitly non-partisan,” he explained. 

He added that Livable CRD is a registered third-party electoral sponsor with Elections BC that runs on donations made via their website. 

This means the coalition must operate independently from candidates and elector organizations. Under Elections BC policy, Livable CRD is not allowed to coordinate or sponsor advertising with, or on behalf of, candidates or elector organizations. 

Bassili says that any donations collected by Livable CRD are being used to pay for physical print materials, banners and to host in-person events for voter information sessions. 

As per Elections BC guidelines, all accounting information will be made public following the election.

Coalition member organizations’ stance

Better Transit YYJ joined this coalition because they were involved with Victorians for Transportation Choice, the organization that preceded Livable CRD. 

According to the organization, their hope is that the scorecard and questionnaire can be a one-stop shop for people wanting to know where candidates stand on urban issues. 

Vice president of Better Transit YYJ Caleb Crookes says that the coalition decided to do the scorecard and questionnaire because many people in the region want a quick and easy way to compare candidates. 

“Honestly, our local elections are typically very low-information environments for voters in particular,” Crookes told Victoria Buzz. 

“Anything we can do to improve that is, in my mind, the responsibility of community organizations.”

On the topic of Better Transit YYJ’s contributions to the larger questionnaire, Crookes says that all of his organization’s questions have been made multiple choice and yes-or-no questions. 

Crookes also acknowledged his organization’s inherent bias, as Better Transit YYJ’s mandate is to advocate for improved transit that is more accessible to everyone in the capital region.

“For people who think it might be biased: of course we are biased—Better Transit organizes for more and better transit,” he explained.  

“The goal of the questionnaire for us is to help voters that want to support better transit to identify the candidates [most] likely to accomplish that goal. Second, we will be holding local candidates accountable to their commitments.” 

He also noted that all organizations involved in the coalition have different biases based on the advocacy work they are committed to. 

Better Transit YYJ has been involved since the beginning of the Livable CRD coalition and their scorecard initiative. Crookes even noted that his organization facilitated the first Livable CRD meeting. 

Another coalition member who spoke with Victoria Buzz was Family Doctors for Saanich. 

Co-founder of Family Doctors for Saanich Tony Wass says that for his organization, their mandate centres around making family physicians more accessible, specifically within the District of Saanich. 

For Family Doctors for Saanich, Wass said their questions would centre around asking candidates how much municipal involvement they believe should be taken on in bringing more doctors into capital region municipalities. 

As some municipalities in Greater Victoria have become increasingly involved in bringing doctors to their municipalities, such as Colwood and Langford, the organization seeks to find out which candidates would be willing to pursue similar efforts. 

He noted that there would likely also be a question asking candidates whether they want their municipality investing in doctors at all, or if they would rather leave it to the Province instead. 

Wass sees this as more of a fact-finding mission to show voters where candidates’ priorities lie surrounding health care. 

“I want to not imply a right answer,” said Wass. “I’m trying to make [Family Doctors for Saanich’s] questions as non-partisan as possible.”

“And because the primary data will be there through the [Livable CRD] website, so any citizens trying to figure out who they’re going to vote for, they’ll be able to see the full answers that the candidates put in.”

Wass noted that to his knowledge, some, if not many, of the candidates do not plan on filling in the questionnaire.

Progress of the questionnaire

As of this publication, the draft questionnaire has been made and is under review. 

Livable CRD plans on sending it out to all declared candidates by August 16th. From there, capital region candidates will have until September 18th to fill it in and submit it back to Livable CRD to be made publicly available and receive their grade. 

The local elections will take place on October 17th, giving voters just under a month to utilize the Livable CRD scorecard and questionnaire as a tool at their disposal in choosing who to vote for. 

Currently, the Livable CRD lists 80 candidates who have publicly announced their intent to run for office as a councillor or mayor. Over 200 candidates ran for city council or mayor in the 2022 local elections.