The federal election may be over across Canada, but residents of Ward 3 in Barrie could be asked to check another ballot fairly soon.
With Coun. Doug Shipley winning the Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte riding in the Oct. 21 federal election, the Conservative MP-elect stepped down as the north-end ward's representative at city hall on Tuesday.
The city can choose one of two ways to approach the vacancy left at the council table: a byelection can be held or city council can appoint a new member.
City clerk Wendy Cooke told BarrieToday she expects to have a staff report on the situation ready for Nov. 18.
In the meantime, council will officially declare the seat vacant at Monday night's meeting, at which point Cooke said there's a process that will follow.
“My report would include my suggestion, but council doesn’t necessarily have to follow that," she said.
Shipley took an unpaid leave of absence from city council beginning Aug. 22 to campaign federally after securing the Conservative Party nomination in June. Deputy Mayor Barry Ward covered Shipley's constituency concerns in his absence.
City council is just one year into its four-year term.
Shipley was first elected to council in 2010 and garnered just under 70 per cent of the votes in last fall's municipal election.
As far as filling an empty council seat, similar situations have arisen at city hall in the past.
The most recent was in July 2017 when Steve Trotter was chosen from a list of 31 people to replace Michael Prowse in Ward 6.
Prowse had stepped down as councillor to take the City of Barrie's CAO job, a position he still holds.
At that time, council voted 6-4 to appoint a new councillor, rather than a byelection. Trotter was an interim councillor until the municipal election in November 2018.
However, this term of council has a much more significant amount of time to go.
The city's last byelection was held in February 2016 to replace Ward 7 councillor John Brassard, who, like Shipley, was elected MP. (Brassard won re-election in Barrie-Innisfil this week.)
On Feb. 1, 2016, Andrew Prince defeated 11 other candidates with 362 votes out of 1,604 ballots cast in Ward 7. Prince was defeated by Gary Harvey in last year's municipal election.
Ward 9 Coun. Sergio Morales told BarrieToday that he expects there will be byelection to deal with the Shipley situation.
“It should be a seamless transition for whoever becomes the new councillor,” Morales said. “We still have to decide, but I imagine it will be a byelection, with three years left in the term.”
Morales added he hopes the new councillor will bring positive attributes to the council chamber.
“Hopefully, we get a councillor who adds to the team with unique knowledge and perspective, yet also challenges us to grow,” he said. “The last thing we want is more toxicity; we don’t want more of that.”
