Regardless of whether you consider municipal candidates' ideas wacky or unfeasible, they are their ideas that they publicly stand behind.

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It’s a motherhood cliché, but kudos to those with the courage to put their names up for public office — especially at the municipal and school board levels.

This is the beating heart of our democracy … even if some municipal campaigns feel like a bit of a circus sideshow. But at least we know who the performers are.

Obviously, this is not to suggest that those running for federal or provincial office don’t deserve credit for putting their names forward as well.

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But one major difference between politicians running for office at the local municipal levels and those at the provincial or federal levels is clearly the party system that somewhat shields individual candidates from ownership of ideas, policies and campaign stylings.

This is a double-edged sword.

On one hand, party politics does allow individual candidates to shirk ownership of both policy and philosophy. Provincial and federal........

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