Election cycle (term of office) Ever since, Justice J.

Paul Rouleau of the Ontario Superior Court, in 2006, ruled that the only place to hold politicians accountable for lying to the voters was at the ballot box, the people have needed this opportunity more, rather than less, frequently. If we are to be lied to during the campaign in order to have us vote FOR a particular person or AGAINST a particular person, we need to be able to have the chance to correct our 'error' before we forget the issue/specifics in the daily hustle and bustle of life. If we find out after the fact that a candidate has received a large amount of funding from a single source, we would have reason to view their decisions very critically and may want to have the ability to 'change our mind' in the near future. In my opinion, consistency in the frequency of local elections with other provinces is a non-issue. There is no need for co-ordination or consultation with municipalities in other provinces that would require that the election cycles be 'harmonized'. With every increase in the term of our elected REPRESENTATIVES, we move further and further away from the ideal of direct democracy. Six months to a year is more that adequate time for those relatively few members who are new to local governments to 'learn the ropes' (they should have been well-versed on the issues when they were running for office). The suggestion that lengthening the election cycle (and thereby likely the planning framework) would provide more certainty for things such as capital projects belies the fact that governments trying to plan anything more than 3 to 5 years out are pretty tenuous as best. The concept of building reserves, rather than "potentially reducing the amount needed for borrowing and thereby reducing the burden on the local taxpayer", is simply a mechanism whereby the taxpayers are relieved of their tax dollars early. While I can appreciate that there are some considerations in terms of how any particular term of office would affect those things called 'Other voting' (referendum), I fail to see how 'consistency' with other provinces and the federal government election cycle have any bearing on what we should choose. If these 'Other voting' events were to be separated from the local government elections, an increase in cost would certainly be expected, even if they did achieve the predicted 'benefit' of more referendums. I can see nothing in these proposals that would tend to increase the accountability of our local politicians, the claim that becoming more like the provincial government in terms of the election cycle (and some unspecified 'accountability measures') notwithstanding. As the acclamation data demonstrates, political 'dynasties' tend to become entrenched, especially in small municipalities, which is something that extending the election cycle will exacerbate. Interesting that, of the roughly 155 municipalities in B. C., to whom the Ministry of Community Services suggested to those interested in furthering the issue of extending the election cycle that they hold a referendum during the 2008 local elections, only 4 chose to do so - not exactly an overwhelming response! So no one gets to feeling too comfortable and loses sight of the objective of representing their constituents, there should also be term limits on local politicians, say no more than 6 - 8 years in succession.