Municipal elections: workshops for voters and candidates with former mayor Christina Benty

Municipal elections are coming up this October in BC, and maybe you or someone you know is interested in running for office as a city councillor, an area director with the regional district or a school trustee. Or perhaps you’re a concerned citizen and you’re curious to learn more about how local government works. Or you’re a voter who’s wondering how best to evaluate the people running to represent you at the local level.

 

Christina Benty likely has the answers to at least some of your questions. Benty is the former mayor of Golden and a leadership consultant with more than 25 years’ experience. She will be hosting workshops in Castlegar, on August 18, and in Creston, on August 20, to discuss the role of local government, the responsibilities of elected officials, leadership and decision-making, and other key considerations for anyone thinking about running for office, and for those electing them.

Local Journalism Reporter Jaime Frederick caught up with Benty last week and you’ll find their conversation below, with the print version lightly edited for readability. (Their conversation first aired on Kootenay Morning on July 29, 2026.)

If you’re interested in attending one of the workshops, visit:

 

CRESTON, August 20, 3 pm

 

Jaime Frederick: I see that there’s a candidate readiness workshop. Can you tell us a little bit about what that is and what you’re planning to cover? 

Christina Benty: So it’s not only a candidate awareness session. It’s also actually for the community, for citizens who are wanting to make sure that their vote counts and that they’re going into the election with a level of awareness about what the roles and responsibilities are of local government. 

So I’m going to be covering exactly what I said, the roles and responsibilities of local government. What’s the role of an elected official versus the role of staff? I’m going to talk about some of the infrastructure challenges that our communities face because that’s something I’m really passionate about. But also what do you need to think about whether you’re going to be a candidate or a voter? What are the things that you need to take into consideration? 

So, as a candidate? How much time is it going to take? How can I prepare? What can I expect in the role?  What are the things that I can consider as a candidate when I’m talking to residents in our community and finding out what’s important to them? But also using the opportunity to have a bigger conversation about what that role is in our lives, the role of local government. 

So that’s the intention. It’s meant to be educational and interactive. I’m hoping people will come with lots of good questions. But also that it’s conversational. 

That’s really great, because in my experience, I’ve worked in government, and I’ve worked in communications for a long time. There seems sometimes to be a misunderstanding or misconception about what governments can do, and what different levels of government can do, amongst the electorate, right? People don’t always understand that municipalities have certain purview over specific things while the provinces and the federal government are responsible for other things. And there’s interplay of those various levels of government. 

Is that your experience as having been an elected official in the past? Is that part of what’s prompted this is just trying to demystify that process and those realities for people? 

Yeah, for sure. I’m also interested in changing the narrative in our communities and helping both citizens and candidates see themselves in a partnership with the community. But also a partnership with the organization. I’m interested in helping facilitate a conversation that moves away from us and them and moves towards like, what do we want as a community? How do we want to grow? What are the services and service levels that are important to us? What services and service levels are we willing to pay for together? What kind of legacy do we want to leave for the future generations? 

And this is why I really care about the infrastructure conversation, because historically, local governments have built infrastructure and kind of forgot about it a little bit. And now a lot of it is aging out in our communities. And I think we need to have better conversations about that this infrastructure is our infrastructure, it’s our collective infrastructure, and it provides a service. So how do we look after that infrastructure, make decisions that’s going to protect the infrastructure so that those future generations get to enjoy at least the same level of service, if not better? Ideally better, right? But it’s really about generational equity, having better conversations about where our community is going, what our vision is, and how do we see ourselves as co-creators of community development rather than co-finger pointers. 

Yeah, for sure. And there is a lot of toxicity in the air right now, for whatever reason. You know, there’s lots of different reasons: social media, just the general tenor of mistrust in political institutions and governments, right? So I think this is great.

Have you run these before? Is this the first one or what’s your track record with these kind of workshops? Do they bring people out? Who do they bring out? Do they bring people out who need the education or is it kind of like preaching to the choir? 

Well, sometimes it’s a bit of both, but one of the things that I will say is that the very first time I started these workshops was actually in 2018. And in Castlegar. And people travelled as far as from Creston, Nelson, Rossland, and Trail. They came from all over the place to attend, and it was one of the better attended sessions. I ran several in 2018, but definitely the one in the West Kootenays was the best attended. And people asked good questions. And I still get comments from folks that actually have been elected about how much it meant to them to have that session. Because once in a while I’ll run into them and they’ll be like, “I remember what you said!”

So it’s kind of cool to see the impact. Then, in 2022, I did even more across the province. And now I would say, in 2026, there’s way more interest in preparing, again, candidates and citizens about local government so that we can have better conversations. Because voter turnout tends to be fairly low, and people don’t realize that local government impacts their day-to-day life. 

So I’ve noticed this growing interest in having these conversations because citizens are responsible for who they elect. It’s just not about the candidates, and it’s not just about getting elected. It’s a co-creative scenario. So who you elect and making sure that they have a leadership character and they have a leadership mindset is so important. 

One of the things we’ll be talking about is for citizens. What kind of questions can you ask potential candidates? Asking them questions like, how are you preparing for the role? What are you doing to prepare? Do you have any experience in a leadership role on a governance board? And you don’t necessarily have to have that experience, but you have to be willing to learn. Are you a learner? How are you going to approach this role? Are you going to approach it with curiosity, and willing to learn how to make yourself relevant? Or are you going to approach it from a negative mindset where you’re going in and you’ve already figured out that you’re unhappy, and you’re pretty sure there’s some nefarious things going on behind the scenes, and you’re following a narrative that’s unhelpful?

Right! We’ve all seen those candidates who go in on a platform of change, whether they understand how the levers of government work or not, and then get in there and realize, “Oh, I can’t do the things I said I was going to do in this role.” 

Yeah. That’s one of the things. So I’m going to talk about the seven deadly sins of candidates and one of the… And one of those sins is making promises. Because first of all you can’t make a promise if you don’t understand the system you’re working in. And if you don’t understand that you work with a team around the table. And you come in with your individual perspective, but you have to figure out, how are we going to work together as a team in service of our community? And not just in service, I would say, of the people that voted for you. But the broader community and, ideally, people that don’t even live in your community yet and haven’t been born. You’re making decisions on their behalf. 

So it’s really having that long-term view. Because I think local government really does have the ability to shift maybe some of this mistrust that we see towards institutions and towards government. I think local government, if it wants to, can really turn the tide of the narrative, but it’s going to take some courage. 

Thanks very much for taking a few minutes to chat with me today. I think this is an excellent initiative, and really a great way to get people talking to each other, and people from all kinds of different backgrounds and political affiliations. That’s one of the nice things about local government, as well, is that, at least in Nelson anyway, we don’t have parties. And so it really, like you say, is about trying to find people who are working in the service of their community and not necessarily beholden to other interests. 

Exactly. Awesome. Well, thank you. I’m glad this worked out for us to have a conversation.