Weds May 6: Local News + Editorial - The Most Important Election Too Many Will Skip

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Editorial: The Most Important Election You'll Probably Skip (And How to Change That)

Municipal elections decide your road, your tax bill, and what gets built next door. So why is voter turnout in Grey-Bruce so low?

In February 2025, just 50.79% of eligible voters in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound cast a ballot in the snap provincial election. That was an improvement over 2022 — and still, half our neighbours stayed home.

Municipal turnout is reliably worse.

In 2022, less than 40% of eligible City of Owen Sound voters showed up to elect the people who would decide their property tax rate, approve subdivisions on their streets, set bylaws on short-term rentals, and hire the City Manager.

Across Grey-Bruce, the picture was much the same: most municipal seats decided by a minority of those who could have voted, many of them by a margin that would fit comfortably in a high school gym.

This is the election where your vote weighs the most. It is also the one most likely to be ignored.

Today, the Owen Sound Current is publishing our 2026 Municipal Election Guide — a living document we’ll keep updating from now through October 26. Check it out:

It explains what each position on your ballot actually does, who’s eligible to run for what, and how voting works in each of the 17 municipalities across our coverage area.

We’ve linked to all unofficial candidate lists and will share coverage of all-candidates meetings, debates and races as the campaign develops. You can access our Election Guide anytime from the main menu of our website.

We’re publishing it now, in May, because the work of being an informed voter starts now.

Nominations are now open. Candidates are deciding whether to run.

And there is one deadline most readers don’t know exists: June 1, the date by which you should review your school support designation with MPAC if you want the right ballot to land in your hands come October.

There are real reasons turnout suffers in municipal elections, and we should name them.

The races are confusing. There are no parties, which means no shorthand for where a candidate stands.

The ballot is long. In Saugeen Shores, voters mark a Mayor, a Deputy Mayor, a Vice Deputy Mayor, two Ward Councillors, and trustees for up to four school boards. In Kincardine, the structure is a hybrid of at-large and ward seats that requires a moment of study to navigate.

Most voters have never met most of the people whose names appear on the ballot, and finding information about them often requires hunting through Facebook posts and lawn-sign sightings.

The structure is not designed for casual engagement. It rewards those who pay attention and penalizes those who don’t.

That structure also keeps shifting under our feet. In May 2025, the Province extended Strong Mayor powers to 169 additional Ontario municipalities, including Owen Sound, Hanover, Saugeen Shores, Kincardine, Brockton and Huron-Kinloss.

In Owen Sound, Mayor Ian Boddy delegated those powers back to council the moment they arrived, and council formally asked the Province to take Owen Sound off the list. Whether that delegation holds depends entirely on who you elect this October.

In short: the rules of municipal government are changing, and the people you choose to navigate those changes will do so largely without the public attention that provincial and federal politicians attract.

With that said, we don’t think low turnout is a moral failing. We think it’s an information and community engagement problem. Most people don’t vote in municipal elections because they don’t feel equipped to — and the people who benefit from that gap are not always the ones acting in your community’s best interest.

Our guide won’t solve that on its own. But it’s a start. Use it. Send us your questions. Send us errors when you spot them. Tell us about the all-candidates meeting your service club is hosting in September.

Then, in October, vote.

The road in front of your house, the tax bill in your mailbox, the subdivision on the edge of town, the future of your local arena, the trustee shaping your kid’s school — these are decisions made by people whose names you’ll see on the October 26 ballot.

They will be made with you, or without you.

We’d rather it be with you.

— The Owen Sound Current

Public Notice

• Sewer Inspections and Hydrant Flushing to Run May 4 through September - City of Owen Sound

• Prepared together: Emergency Preparedness Week runs May 3 to 9 - Bruce County

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Miranda Miller
Editor

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