Another contender emerges to replace Seiling as Regional Chair

As Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic announces his intention to run for another term, two contenders have now emerged for the title of Regional Chair.

It didn’t take long for candidates to file nomination papers, after Ken Seiling announced his retirement at a council meeting Wednesday night.

Seiling says it wasn’t an easy decision to make – as he’s been Chair for 33 years, and in municipal politics for 42.

Thursday morning, former Waterloo Councillor Jan d’Ailly announced his intention – and local businessman Jay Aissa has now confirmed he’s running, after losing to Seiling back in 2014.

Dr. Robert Williams is a Political Science Professor at University of Waterloo, and appeared on The Mike Farwell Show on Friday.

He says the race for the title will be nothing short of interesting.

“It’s interesting because Ken has been the only elected Regional Chair – he was actually the third Chair ever in the Region. He was elected by council initially, and then after a few terms the province changed the rules to say the Regional Chair in Waterloo will be elected by popular vote – so Ken is the only person who has ever played that role.”

Williams says that means it’s a wide-open field, as there is no incumbent.

“Also – there’s no clear defining issue that would we would necessarily be responding to in this election. Certainly last time, Jay Aissa’s candidacy was about LRT – to use a bad pun, the train had already left the station – but he wanted to fight it. There have been other issues around amalgamation in the past .. so I don’t know what is going to come along to give this particular election focus, other than new leadership.”

Although Ken Seiling was Regional Chair for over three decades, Williams doesn’t expect things to change dramatically under new leadership.

“How different it will be will perhaps depend on the style of the individual elected – I suspect that they’re not in a position to make change dramatically, and certainly not in the short-term, as its a big operation,” explains Williams. “There’s a lot of things that go on across a whole range of social, economic, protective, and environmental things that a Regional Chair is there to help frame, and then sell to 15 other people around the table. So what we’ll be looking at is someone that can handle those kinds of dynamics.”

He reminds us that what happens in a campaign doesn’t necessarily dictate how it will all actually unfold.

With a race like this – Williams is hoping it encourages people to get interested, and go out and vote this fall.

Since Seiling announced his retirement, there’s also been speculation that Regional Councillors Sean Strickland and Karen Redman will throw their hats into the ring – but no official word yet.

Nominations for Regional Chair officially close on July 27th.