As of noon on Sunday, Oct. 20—the day after election day—Katherine Howlett and Jeff Arsenault had received enough votes to be re-elected as French school board trustees representing Halifax on the Conseil scolaire acadien provincial (CSAP).
According to the Halifax Municipality’s unofficial election results, Howlett has 3,985 votes, and Arsenault has 2,568 votes to hold spots one and two, ahead of the other candidates, Jean-Philippe Bourgeois, who has 1,946 votes, and Marc Pinet, who has 1,818 votes.
Howlett, Arsenault and Pinet ran as incumbents, acclaimed in 2020 when the CSAP board had 18 members and three trustee seats in the HRM. Bourgeois was running for the first time.
This election, two seats were up for grabs in the HRM for the CSAP’s new board of 13 members across the province’s 10 electoral districts—and Howlett and Arsenault have them.
“It feels great,” Howlett told The Coast Sunday. She says there’s “a huge difference” in the feeling this time versus 2020 when she was acclaimed.
“It’s been a humbling experience for me because, with four candidates in the race, half of us weren’t going to be elected—so, you accept that from the get-go.”
She says this year’s outcome “doesn’t take away from [the non-elected candidates’] skills, competence, or engagement whatsoever. I respect the choice of the voters, but it can be tough.”
Howlett has received the most votes and is “deeply grateful for everyone who voted.” She says she’s “excited” to see how a smaller 13-member council works while acknowledging there are many issues to address. “But I’m really optimistic.”
As for working with her fellow HRM council member, Arsenault, Howlett is “looking forward to a diversity of opinion where the council works together for the good of all the students across the province,” including her co-councillor from Halifax.
Her overall takeaway? “I’ve been there for four years, and people are asking me to continue in the same way as I’ve done before—and I’m looking forward to getting back to it.”
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Arsenault told The Coast on Sunday that he had “no expectations whatsoever” on how the votes would go; however, being re-elected “is what I hoped for.” But, he hoped it would be alongside Bourgeois because they both advocate for the same issues: increased Halifax representation on CSAP’s board and an urban High School on the peninsula.
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“I’m going to continue doing what I was doing because I’ve been elected this time, not acclaimed, with a clear mandate,” says Arsenault. “I’ve been in the news, so if people were not cool with the way I did things, then they would have chosen not to vote for me, and that’s not the case.”
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Arsenault received the second-most votes cast and said he was elected for a reason. “Enough people are paying attention to indicate to me that I’m speaking on their behalf—and they want me to continue doing that.”
As of noon Sunday, the total number of votes cast was 10,317 across all four candidates. However, this doesn’t represent the number of people who turned up to vote. Those who self-declared as eligible CSAP voters were asked to choose two candidates.
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Therefore, if each person chose two candidates, the number of voters would be half the total votes tallied or 5,158 people.
In a Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board hearing on May 23 of this year, the estimated number of eligible CSAP voters in the HRM was 20,800 based on 2021 census data from Statistics Canada. However, that’s an estimate.
Arsenault and Howlett will begin their second terms this fall as the CSAP board resumes its regular sessions on Nov. 2 at école secondaire de Par-en-Bas in Yarmouth County. Find more information on the CSAP here.
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This article appears in Oct 1 – Nov 6, 2024.
