Mayor Questions Election Result Coverage

Posted on 10/21/2015 by Ron Manz 107.5 KISSFM
Vernon's Mayor is calling into question the decision to allow federal election results from the East to be broadcast into the West before polls in our region were closed. Akbul Mund says it just may have been a factor in electing more Liberal MP's in the West than there have been in a long time. "You already see a clean sweep for the Liberals in the East, I don't know, maybe it did influence people. When people see that 'wow, everyone's voting Liberal' maybe they changed their votes at the last minute. I doubt it, but you never know what the influence could be." Vernon has gone from being a city represented in parliament in Ottawa by a ruling party MP to one now in the official opposition. Mel Arnold was elected in the North Okanagan/Shuswap for the Conservatives. Mund says you never know if the change will affect the number and possible size of federal grants Vernon could get. "I know sometimes that gets looked at. I'm not sure of the ramifications of that one hundred per cent. We'll work with the Conservatives here and move forward. We know Justin Trudeau, he's been to Vernon before so we'll see if it makes any difference. I doubt that it will." "Some people could look at it that way, but you could also look at the way that if things go well in the Trudeau era here, they may be looking at funneling money to communities like ours just to win the next election."