Government and Politics
The City of Dawson Creek has a council-manager form of municipal government. A six-member council, along with one mayor, is elected at-large every three years.Mike Bernier was elected Mayor of the City in 2008 after serving one term as a Councillor. He also helps promote this community in his role by taking on the task as the Economic Development Officer.
In 2007, the city authorized $54 million in expenditures, which paid for services such as sewerage, parks, recreation, road maintenance, snow removal, water treatment, and fire and police protection. For creating its Community Energy Plan, which involved the installation of low-voltage street lights and solar-powered hot water heaters, the city was awarded the Federation of Canadian Municipalities' 2007 Sustainable Community Award. The city is represented in School District 59 by two school board trustees, and the Peace River Regional District by one director.
Dawson Creek is situated in the Peace River South provincial electoral district and is represented by Blair Lekstrom of the British Columbia Liberal Party in the provincial assembly. Lekstrom served as mayor of Dawson Creek between 1996 and 2001. He became a Member of the Legislative Assembly in the 2001 provincial election with 67% support from Dawson Creek polls and was re-elected in 2005 with 57% support from the city. Before Lekstrom, Peace River South was represented by Dawson Creek resident Jack Weisgerber. Weisgerber was first elected in 1986 as a member of the Social Credit Party and served as the province's Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources and Minister of Native Affairs. While the Social Credit Party lost power in 1991, Weisgerber was re-elected and served as interim party leader. He joined the Reform Party of British Columbia in 1994 and won re-election in 1996 as party leader, even though Dawson Creek polls put him in third place behind the BC Liberal Party and New Democratic Party candidates.
Federally, Dawson Creek is located in the Prince George—Peace River riding. The riding is represented in the Canadian House of Commons by Conservative Bob Zimmer. Bob Zimmer was elected to this seat in 2011 after Jay Hill retired. Before Hill, who was first elected in 1993, the riding was represented by Progressive Conservative Frank Oberle. Oberle served as its Member of Parliament for 20 years.
| Canadian federal election 2011: Dawson Creek polls in
Prince George—Peace River< |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | city % | riding % | ||
| Conservative | Bob Zimmer | 2,867 | 64% | 62% | ||
| New Democratic | Lois Boone | 1,041 | 23% | 26% | ||
| Green | Hilary Crowley | 277 | 6.0% | 6.0% | ||
| Liberal | Ben Levine | 252 | 5.6% | 5.2% | ||
| Pirate | Jeremy Cote | 45 | 1.0% | 1.1% | ||
| Turnout | 4,482 | 50% | 54% | |||
| B.C. election 2009: Dawson Creek polls in
Peace River South |
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | city % | riding % | ||
| BC Liberal | Blair Lekstrom | 1,456 | 67% | 63% | ||
| New Democrat | Pat Shaw | 531 | 24% | 27% | ||
| Green | Grant Fraser | 141 | 6.5% | 7.0% | ||
| Independent | Donna Young | 42 | 1.9% | 2.9% | ||
| Turnout | 2,170 | 30% | 44% | |||
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Famous quotes containing the words government and/or politics:
“If private men are obliged to perform the offices of government, to protect the weak and dispense justice, then the government becomes only a hired man, or clerk, to perform menial or indifferent services.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is a place where we are always alone with our own mortality, where we must simply have something greater than ourselves to hold onto—God or history or politics or literature or a belief in the healing power of love, or even righteous anger.... A reason to believe, a way to take the world by the throat and insist that there is more to this life than we have ever imagined.”
—Dorothy Allison (b. 1949)