Shawna Stolte

We pay attention to politics in inverse proportion to the extent it affects our lives. The political junkies among us religiously watch Power and Politics and have complex and well-informed opinions about what’s going on this week in Ottawa. But the same political junkies often struggle to remember the name of their city councillor. And yet at both city and regional councils, councillors make decisions that affect our lives every single day in a way the federal government seldom does.

This dichotomy between the real and imagined job of local government politicians is something we wanted to explore further. To do so we were pleased to welcome Councillor Shawna Stolte, who represents Burlington’s Ward 4, and who was first elected in 2018.

The result is not a political interview. It’s not about policies or decisions, successes or failures. It’s an interview about understanding what it’s like to be a municipal politician from a municipal politician’s perspective, because we think to have better local government we first need to understand much better how local government works.

With a special guest appearance from Roland’s sump pump.

Thanks to those who help us put this together:

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The Quadrafonics: fantastic opening and closing tunes!

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