By Patrick Book

Thousands sought to sign Regina petition to force stadium vote

Oct 29, 2012 | 4:18 PM

A petition hoping to force a referendum vote on Regina's new stadium proposal isn't being abandoned in the wake of last week's civic election.

An overwhelmingly pro-stadium funding proposal council and mayor were elected last Wednesday. Michael Fougere was elected with better than 42 per cent of the mayoral vote, a result he said clearly emphasized that the city is in favour of a memorandum of understanding dictating how a new stadium would be paid for.

Dawn Thomas was on the ballot for Ward Nine, an area of the city she concedes she neither lived in nor was well-known in. She failed to win the seat, getting only eight per cent of the vote and finishing last. But the most outspoken candidate when it comes to the stadium insists she still hopes to force a referendum on the issue.

“We haven't given up on the petition,” Thomas told media gathered on Scarth Street at 11th Avenue Monday morning. She and a team of about 10 supporters are re-starting the effort to gather signatures, suggesting that the petition had fallen out of the spotlight as election day grew closer.

While only one of the 11 winners on the city council side of the vote is vocally anti-stadium Thomas points out that not all wards were given an option. She notes both candidates running in Ward 10 were pro-stadium and supported the current funding formula.

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“I still think there are a lot of people out there feeling discontent. Fougere won with 42 per cent but if you tally up the rest of them more people voted against him than for him.”

Thomas remains hopeful that she can still acquire the 20,000 signatures she needs for the petition to force a vote. She estimates that after nearly 11 weeks she has collected 10,000. Her deadline is Nov. 7, giving her just nine days to double that amount. She concedes that will be hard work, but she notes she has already received some unexpected support.

“There are people out there who haven't given me their numbers. I know I've also gotten them in the mail from businesses that I didn't know were collecting. There's a lot of businesses that are hosting it that are under the radar, that aren't telling people they're hosting it. But they're there.”

She also suspects that the effort has suffered because there haven't been enough set locations for people to seek out the petition. The bulk of the signatures have been collected by Thomas and her supporters while out in public. Many businesses have declined to keep copies of the petition in their shops for patrons to sign because of its political nature. But Thomas has now secured a couple of locations where people can seek it out.

“We've got A La Carte Catering hosting it Wednesday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and again on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and at The Unitarian Centre this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.”

Regardless of the success of this final push, Thomas says this will be her last attempt. She notes that this is the second draft of the petition after the first was abandoned because it wasn't worded in a legally binding way.

“If we don't manage to get the 20,000 signatures we're going to turn it in to city council anyway … It still tells me there's a big voice of discontent out there.”

Deputy City Clerk Amber Smale confirms that the petition could potentially trigger a legally-binding referendum. It would be entirely dependent on whether or not all the signatures on the forms are valid. She says Council may be able to determine it's own question if it deems the petition's wording unclear. The cost of a vote could be comparable to the price tag on an election, the last of which cost more than $550,000.

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