ROTHENBURGER – Election double dipping should be against the law

WHEN IS SOMETHING going to be done about candidates who run in more than one election at the same time?

At least two candidates in Saturday’s (Oct. 17, 2026) B.C. municipal elections are also running in the Oct. 24 provincial election. Lisa Phillips was a candidate for the Conservative Richmond Party in the civic election, and is running for the BC Conservatives in Vancouver-South Granville as well.

In Lumby, long-time mayor Kevin Acton ran for re-election. He’s also seeking to represent the Vernon-Lumby riding as a Conservative.

Phillips finished 15^th in the election for eight Richmond councillors. Acton, however, easily won his mayoral election. If he wins provincially as well, he’ll have to resign as mayor, forcing a byelection he says he’ll pay for.

Why should this be allowed to happen? Legislation banning provincial elections from being called at the same time as municipal campaigns, as the Conservatives propose, would do nothing to resolve the election double-dipping situation.

There currently is no law against a candidate running in more than one election at the same time. The only rule is that if you run and win both a municipal and a provincial election, you have to quit your municipal job so you can focus on the other one, which is what Acton might have to do.

There are other examples of double dipping in election candidacies, with some local examples.

For whatever reason, two-term City councillor Donovan Cavers decided to run both in the council and school board elections in 2018. Public reaction was highly negative, and he was defeated in both elections, coming 13^th in the council vote and  seventh in the election for five city school board positions.

Cavers liked running in elections. In 2017 he ran for the Greens provincially in Kamloops South Thompson but came third behind Nancy Bepple of the NDP and the winner Todd Stone of the BC Liberals. Had he won, he would have had to resign from City council.

If Cavers had won in both the council and school trustee elections, he wouldn’t have had to give up either job. In B.C. it’s perfectly legal to sit on both at the same time.

Indeed, Clearwater resident Shelley Sim has done it for years. This past Saturday she did it again, except this time she defeated incumber mayor Merlin Blackwell, so now she’ll sit both as a mayor and as a school trustee.

By the way, the person she beat in the trustee election was Lee Onslow, a TNRD board incumbent. Onslow won another term as the director for Electoral Area B (Thompson Headwaters) by acclamation. So if she had defeated Sim in the Clearwater trustee election, it would be Onslow sitting on two different local government bodies at once.

There are at least a couple of things wrong with election double dipping. In the case of municipal and provincial crossovers, a candidate winning in both has to quit the junior position and focus on being an MLA. But electors have to go back to the polls in a byelection, which is both expensive and an unnecessary imposition.

When the same person is elected to both a municipal and a school board or regional district position, it brings into question whether they can do justice to both jobs. It also raises the question of whether it’s just a case of wanting an extra paycheque. It’s not impossible that a person could have equal interests in education and civic or provincial matters and they may well be fine folks at heart. But, sorry, make a choice.

It might also be a way of hedging one’s bets — if I lose in one I might still win in the other.

None of it is acceptable. New legislation is needed, but not just to prevent provincial and municipal elections being held at the same time.

Their oughta be a law against double dipping in election candidacies.

Mel Rothenburger is a former regular contributor to CFJC-TV and CBC radio, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, writes for the Kamloops Chronicle and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and was a Webster Foundation Commentator of the Year finalist. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor.  He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.