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Last week in the north end I came across a large storefront freshly painted in blue. It wasn’t yet another curated artisan gift store, but a campaign office, now manspreading itself along Gottingen Street on behalf of prospective councillor Brenden Sommerhalder.
In April, Sommerhalder announced he would stand for District 8 after other candidates dropped out in support of Lindell Smith, all citing the need for a more diverse council. The subtext of calls for greater diversity in politics can usually be read as “more representative of the actual population being served.” If he wins, Smith would be the second African Nova Scotian to sit on Halifax council. Also the second only non-white councillor ever, by the way. As a white male in favour of diversity, naturally, Sommerhalder put himself forward to run against Smith, suggesting he qualifies because he is a bit younger than many in the currently 100 percent white and two-thirds male council. This would be confusing if it wasn’t so blatantly disingenuous. It demonstrates that despite being a “proudly progressive urban booster,” he isn’t much concerned with altering this region’s reputation for several varieties of inequality.
I travelled to Halifax in 2014 from Toronto—I’m from London, UK, originally, so I’m not a Canadian big city elitist but a British one, which is loads worse. I know that Nova Scotia is the target of snobbery and classism from the rest of the country. However when I announced my plans to leave many people in TO who are not elitists said they could never come here. They’d rather avoid an environment even more hostile and isolating than much of Canada for those who are not-white, male, straight and cisgender.
Anyway, let’s put divisive identity politics aside and focus on Sommerhalder’s plans for the city. He’s currently the director of marketing for the Downtown Halifax Business Commission, as the deft use of hollow corporate jargon in his campaign material demonstrates. The slogan “We can start at yes instead of a no,” exemplifies how it appears to be saying a whole lot of nothing. Yes to who? Like many dashing youngish, leftish, capitalist types, he pays lip service to fighting poverty and supporting environmental sustainability, but is actually Captain Gentrification. Sommerhalder and others recently praised the neoliberal urban planning strategies of Malmo, Sweden. While it earns plenty of acclaim from suit-wearing business leaders, Malmo has also sold off massive amount of social housing and public space to private developers, has some of the highest child poverty rate in the country and is rapidly gentrifying into a landscape that creates (essentially) gated city spaces where the poor can’t go. Great bike routes, though. Rather than benefiting the majority of residents in this area, it will focus on attracting business interests whose goal is to create an environment favourable to a profit-seeking development regime with no investment in supporting the community. So, much the same trend as now, but accelerated.
Of course, Sommerhalder isn’t the only white man running in District 8, and the potential for greater diversity is an issue in every district across the city, not to mention most ridings across the province and the country. There are an awful lot of white men out there scrambling to win elections with politics that will create further social, racial and economic segregation. And while it’ll take more than a few superficial instances of diversity to change this, we definitely don’t need more of the same. As it so often goes in mainstream politics in this city (and elsewhere) there’s arguably not much about the majority of candidates that represents Halifax as it is.
A white man deciding to run in District 8 shows he is ultimately self-serving. Because his is serving the status quo. Because it is him.
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This article appears in Oct 6-12, 2016.
Hilarious.
amazing..
Sommerholder saying he’s a diverse candidate when there are actual diverse candidates is laughable.
If you actually believe Halifax is more hostile than Toronto to non-straight or cis people, congratulations, you’ve already inherited the classic grass-is-greener Halifax attitude. Welcome, and don’t trip over the country’s fourth-largest pride festival (on a per-capita basis, the largest in the country by far) on the way into town.
Seriously, though, public-opinion polls, and more empirical data like employment and hate-crime statistics, indicate that while anti-queer prejudice surely does exist here, we perform basically the same as everywhere else in Canada, except the prairies, on matters of discrimination.
We are not an inclusive utopia. Nor are we some sort of ignorant small-time backwater full of prejudiced rubes, though for some fucking weird reason, there are a LOT of Haligonians who really think we are, to the point that it’s become a “fact” that is impossible to discuss.
Oh, and also: I’m voting for Lindell myself, but there’s nothing WRONG with a white man deciding to run. He is not, by virtue of his skin colour, serving the status quo and therefore must defer to non-white candidates. To say so is crazy problematic.
I’m glad the representation looks more diverse this time around, and I hope Lindell wins, partly for that reason, but Brenden is not a bad guy for not stepping aside. Give me a fucking break.
District 8 is not black, or white, or immigrant, or anything. It is diverse. Anyone can run.
It is absolutely absurd to eliminate the essence of democracy by saying a white man cannot run. I am 110% in favor of more diversity and, were I in district 8 I might well vote for Lindell IF HE IS THE BEST CANDIDATE BASED ON EXPERIENCE AND HIS PLATFORM. To either vote for him or not have a candidate run against him simply to increase the diversity of the council is neither democratic or reasonable.
I’m forced to disagree with Joeblow. “Hilarious” does not even begin to describe this.
Once again, with neither intent, nor effort, The Coast manages to Out-Onion, “The Onion.”
Unbelievable. I don’t know how they do it in other places you have been but in halifax we have democracy and respect for each other’s point of view. Our candidates are friends with each other and help push each other’s agendas for the betterment of our communities. Please take your disrespectful opinion elsewhere. If you had constructive criticism bring them on, don’t just go around spreading hate like this.
I don’t think she likes Sommerhalder. Nothing wrong with that, there’s a lot there not to like. But hating on him for being a young, white, overly-ambitious, male opportunist probably isn’t the best reason.
He has a point. No one is saying he can’t run. But it speaks to his arrogance and self-entitlement that he speaks out against a council that is all white yet throws his hat in the race where the best shot is to ekect an African Nova Scotian.
You can’t just hate somebody because they happened to be born white and a male. This girl has little grasp of what Halifax actually is. She is not the “voice of the city”
“He’s not an edgy white liberal, I’M an edgy white liberal!”
This drivel is so condescending to Lindell Smith (and other candidates of colour, for that matter). The logical conclusion from this keyboard diarrhea is that diversity is good, decent people have removed themselves from the race and Lindell should win by acclamation? Forget debates, or the competition of ideas, what Councillor Watts really wanted was a Lindell coronation? I’m voting for Lindell, but I have no major differences with any of the other frontrunners, and it is obvious that they like and respect each other when they are in group settings (and all sit or have sat together on the boards of community organizations.
The only takeaway from this word shart? Your Toronto friends are assholes, and you are lucky to be rid of them. As they also are to be rid of you.
I wonder why the author chose to erase the candidacies of Anthony Kawalski and Irvine Carvery from the article. Do they not fit the narrative? Anthony Kawalski, as a gay black immigrant certainly embodies diversity, yet the author completely marginalizes him from her article. Perhaps Rhys needs to check their privilege and stay in their own lane.
This individual gets a lot of exercise jumping to conclusion, and paint everything with the same bush.
Amazingly hypocritical …an admitted elitist slagging a chap who has devoted a great deal of time and energy to oppose “gentrification” and to support more broad and inclusive options across a full spectrum of issues would be laughable, if it were funny.
Rhys, you are welcome here in HRM and we wish you every success. I know some of the candidates in District 8 personally over a span of many years. Brenden is anything but what you seem to suggest, with a clear sneer in your tone.
This crazy thing called democracy we practice here allows any one to stand for office and allows us all as citizens for vote (or not) for whom we believe is the best candidate for the position.
Your opinions are your own and you are well entitled to them, however poorly informed they may be. My guess is you have a dislike for Brenden that emanates from from some dark place in your smug elitist sense of superiority. I expect you don’t actually know him…if you did, you would not have treated him, and the citizens of District 8, so patronizingly.
Halifax needs to De-Amalgamate into two: Rural and Urban, to bring the party system to council so we don’t have whack jobs like Waye Mason going rouge and trying to turn the city into one giant bike path and we need term limits for council.
The system is broken, bringing in better candidates to a broken system won’t fix anything.
The hypocrisy in this piece would be amusing if it weren’t so sad.
Could I ask what the hell did I just read ? What does skin colour have to do with running the city ? Sorry this is a joke.
Elitist. Hypocrite. Snob. Please move back to Toronto, or better yet, England.
Yes, let’s actively DISCOURAGE bright young people from running in politics by publicly shaming them for DARING to run when CLEARLY THEY HAVE THE WRONG SKIN COLOUR OR GENDER! That will go a long way in changing the toxic political environment we find ourselves in.
I think Brenden Sommerhalder and Lindell Smith are doing a great job with their campaigns. As a resident of District 8, I feel blessed to have such good candidates running to represent me and my family at City Hall. This Rhys person sure as hell doesn’t represent my “voice”.
If all the women running are elected, we still wouldn’t have gender parity.
Why can’t we rely on women to run for office. Barriers? Bullshit.
Unfortunately this is not a joke and Rhys actually believes their own bulls**t. Even more heartbreaking, they are only turned on by all of the backlash they are getting (including this post) and negativity they are spreading for writing and getting this garbage published. Get back to the UK and stay in your own lane.
Wow. I think all the xenophbic comments actually prove her point.
Guess years of defacto affirmative action for whites in every institution was fine. Heaven forbid there be a second non-white Councillor. What a backwater, provincial dump. White privilege is ostensibly dead, but like the killer from horror movies, isn’t really.
This person thrives on publicly shaming others. It is sad and toxic.