Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens says the Ward 7 byelection has not been forgotten.
It was announced in mid-March that the April 27 vote was being postponed because of COVID-19 and Drew Dilkens says Windsor was one of three municipalities that had active by-elections when the pandemic struck.
"So the clerk has indicated that as soon as the province lifts the restrictions on the number of people that can gather in once place from 10 to some higher number, that she can remove the emergency declaration that she has the power to invoke, and that would then set in motion an election date that would be about seven or eight weeks out," says Dilkens.
Once the clerk triggers the by-election, candidates will have seven or eight weeks to get the message heard, Dilkens adds.
“That would get candidates time to continue to knock on doors and tell people why they should vote for them and then it would allow on the back end, administration to put all the pieces together to get the workers in place for the byelection and to be able to get it ready to hold if safely."
Dilkens says he's anxious to get the seat filled.
“Well gosh, I would hope that by September we could actually have someone in the chair and representing the people of Ward 7,” he says.
There are 12 people running for the Ward 7 seat that was left vacant when Irek Kusmierczyk was elected as the Liberal MP for Windsor-Tecumseh in the 2019 federal election.