Municipal Election Candidate Survey
The 2022 Municipal Election Candidate Survey
A large part of encouraging active transportation in our City is the development of safe infrastructure – bike lanes, multi-use paths and crosswalks, in addition to how neighbourhoods are built around current zoning by-laws and development plans.
The City Council plays a very important role in developing active transportation infrastructure as they are responsible for the approval of future infrastructure projects, or City led initiatives.
Knowing this important role they play, we set out to create a resource where residents could learn more about each candidate’s thoughts on things such as the future of walkability, their perspectives on current safety and accessibility for pedestrians and cyclists, and how they plan to allocate funding and resources to improve both infrastructure and community behaviour as it pertains to “sharing the road”, We shared the document widely on social media channels to help support candidates, inform the community, and encourage voter turnout.
As a non-partisan organization, nuSarnia Foundation does not endorse candidates. These questions provide an educational resource to inform voters of the candidate’s views and opinions on walking, cycling and public transit in our city.
Project Goals
Goal 1
Platform for thoughtful responses.
Goal 2
Social, meaningful conversations.
Goal 3
InIncreased resident engagement.
Project Results
Through our active transportation themed questionnaire, we gave candidates a platform to publish in-depth, thoughtful responses on the topic. Active transportation had not been a large subject in the public debates, and not all candidates had active transportation highlighted in their platform, so it was difficult to know who was an advocate for it, or not. Sharing their responses on social media led to a more informed community, more public dialogue on the topic in general, and an increase in voter confidence that they knew exactly how their preferred candidates envisioned the future of active transportation in Sarnia.
It is important for community members to use their voices and let Council know what we desire to see in our City. We hope that resources like this help people become more informed on where candidates stand on certain issues, and to feel confident to continue the conversation by writing letters to Council, participating in city-led surveys, etc.