Jimmy Kimmel loves Dildo. Signs all over the small Newfoundland community say as much.
In an admirable example of committing to the bit, the host of Jimmy Kimmel Live! has been campaigning for Dildo’s mayor’s chair for the past week, even dispatching his sidekick, Guillermo Rodriguez, to convince its 1,200 residents and, ahem, erecting a Hollywood-style Dildo sign to overlook the seaside settlement. Locals, clearly up for a bit of fun, have attempted to recruit Kimmel’s arch-nemesis Matt Damon to run against him, without success so far.
Obviously Dildo has one of the greatest of all Canadian place names (not even Punkeydoodles Corners, Ont., or Stoner, B.C., can compete), but if the late-night host knew how complicated local politics are on the Rock, he wouldn’t want the job, says Robert Greenwood, director of the Leslie Harris centre of regional policy and development at Memorial University of Newfoundland.
Greenwood explained the answer to the question many non-Newfoundlanders and come-from-aways must be wondering: What does the real mayor of Dildo have to say about all this?
Nothing, it turns out, because Dildo’s residents, like tens of thousands of other Newfoundlanders, have no mayor, no town council, and no formal local elections. Dildo is unincorporated and part of a local service district — where the government is a committee of five to seven volunteers chosen at a public meeting and property taxes don’t exist.
That doesn’t mean just anyone can come in and declare themselves mayor. Kimmel was named “honourary mayor” Thursday night by a group of residents and politicians. Andrew Pretty, a member of Dildo’s local service district committee, made it clear to the CBC that the post is purely honourary.
Premier Dwight Ball formally invited Kimmel to Dildo earlier this week, and he finally accepted, upon reassurance from Pretty that he won’t have to do any actual work.
The existence of the local service district is a quirk of Newfoundland history and politics, Greenwood explained. Whereas other early English colonies, like those in New England and Upper Canada, quickly established local governance through civic charters, the British Parliament actively legislated against the formal settlement of Newfoundland, because it would have strengthened the cod fishery and competed with the fishery in England’s West Country.
St John’s, and a few other industrial cities and towns, got a municipal government early on, he said.
“But it was really not until, as we like to say, Canada joined Newfoundland, in 1949, that you started to see municipal government evolve. And it only took off in the 1960s,” he said. “And as a result there developed a political culture and a type of community leadership that was very much a part of the wonderful identity, culture, humour, music and survival ability of Newfoundland and Labrador.”
Volunteers working through local service districts may be in charge of sewer, fire, water, garbage collection, road clearing, street lighting and animal control in communities like Dildo. They often have a recreation committee and plan town events. People take care of themselves, and their neighbours.
Districts have the power to charge fees, but how effectively this can be done varies, Greenwood said. In some places you can pay to have a neighbouring, incorporated municipality pick up the garbage and provide fire services. In others the province picks up the slack.
Previously, decisions on local matters were the purview of churches and wealthy merchants, and the decline of these power sources and the patchwork of municipal systems left in Newfoundland have resulted in a bit of “chaos,” said Stephen G. Tomblin, a retired professor of political science and expert on local politics in Newfoundland.
Although there are tense relationships between communities where some people pay property taxes and their neighbours down the road pay less — or nothing — the people getting a good deal have a vested interest in keeping things the way they are, and there’s a lot of inertia in the system, Tomblin said.
In practice, this creates all manner of issues, and opportunities. For one thing, no one seemed to be around on Friday to answer questions about Dildo’s governance. Numbers and alternate numbers for local service district representatives in Dildo and neighbouring South Dildo appeared to be out of service, or did not take messages. Listed home numbers were not answered during the workday.
Without strong civic government, expertise can be lacking, regional planning and infrastructure issues can arise, Greenwood said. This is especially an issue in areas rich in natural resources where local interests can get steamrolled by those of large companies and other levels of government.
In a way, Newfoundland and Labrador is an extreme example of a problem that exists in cities, towns and counties across Canada, Greenwood said. Canada has one of the weakest systems of local government in the Western world. In most areas of Europe and North America, municipalities have more powers to collect taxes, enact laws and deliver services. And Newfoundland and Labrador has the weakest local government of all. But weak doesn’t mean bad — far, far from it, Greenwood said.
“Don’t ever underestimate the smart and savvy and craftiness of rural leaders. So while they may not have the formal democratic trappings, and bureaucracy and authority … these are really savvy folks with a sense of humour. Dildo is going to benefit enormously from the tourism.”
So while Kimmel’s mayoral race is, essentially a joke, Dildo’s getting the last laugh.
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August 17, 2019 at 08:15AM
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