School District 46 · Trustee Area 3Gibsons · Roberts Creek · Elphinstone · West Howe Sound
BAILEYMark
School Trustee
A Roberts Creek resident with sixteen years on a school board.
You have three votes for school trustee.
Three trustees are elected in Area 3, so you get three votes and you can use every one of them.New to this table. Not new to the work. I was elected four times to a school board in Ontario and chaired it for five years. Our two boys graduated from Elphi.
Use all three of your votes. I'd like one of them.
Seven candidates are running for three trustee seats. And in Elphinstone and West Howe Sound, only one candidate was nominated for regional district director, so for a lot of voters there the school board is the only real contest on the ballot this year.
Why I am running
The next board writes a budget with nothing left to soften it.
The board balanced its last two budgets by drawing down accumulated savings, about $2.95 million one year and $2.53 million the next. On the board's own projections that leaves roughly $95,000 in reserve. Funded enrolment is down 104 students, so less money is coming in from the province.
SD46 2025-26 amended annual budget and 2026-27 annual budgetSpending reserves to protect services through a hard year is a defensible choice, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. But it is a choice you can only make twice. The board elected on 17 October writes the 2027-28 budget with real decisions in it rather than paper ones.
What worries me is not the arithmetic. It is the order things get cut in, because the quiet reductions always come first: a counsellor position left vacant, an education assistant not replaced, a bit less release time. Nobody notices for a year. Then everybody notices.
Read all four of my priorities, each one with the district's own published figures behind it.
The record
Why me:
- I have done this job. Elected four times as a school trustee in Guelph, Ontario: sixteen years, five of them as board chair, at a board of roughly 35,000 students.
- My kids went through these schools. Both of my sons attended SD46 start to finish and graduated from Elphinstone.
- I run public processes here now. Chair of the Roberts Creek Official Community Plan Commission and vice president of the xwesam-Roberts Creek Community Association.
- I already sit at a local government table. Alternate Director for Electoral Area D at the Sunshine Coast Regional District.
- I know how to argue for funding. Six years as a vice-president of the Ontario Public School Boards Association, making the case for public education to the people who write the funding formula. SD46 has that case to make.
In February the community plan commission I chair ran a town hall in Roberts Creek about the future of our community. I organized it, nine volunteers facilitated the tables, and a larger team of commission members and neighbours put the whole thing together. About 175 people came, 220 answered the survey afterward, and the report we sent the regional district published the weaknesses in our own method alongside the findings. That is how I think a public body should work, and it is how I would work at a school board table.
Committed to schools worth moving to, and worth staying for
What others say
People I have worked with.
-
Kelly BacksDirector, Electoral Area D (xwesam / Roberts Creek), Sunshine Coast Regional DistrictI found Mr. Bailey to be an intelligent and capable leader for his community who makes fair and balanced decisions as Chair.
How to vote
Vote for three trustees in Area 3.
Three votes for school trustee. I am asking for one of them.
- Wed 7 OctAdvance voting, 8 am to 8 pm
- Wed 14 OctAdvance voting, 8 am to 8 pm
- Sat 17 OctGeneral voting day, 8 am to 8 pm
When will you vote?
Wherever you live, in Gibsons or in Areas D, E and F, the trustee race is on your ballot.
Mail ballots are available to every eligible voter. Rural areas: scrd.ca/mail-ballots, apply by 4:30 pm on 15 October. Town of Gibsons: gibsons.ca, apply by noon on 16 October.
Lawn signs
Put a sign on your lawn.
A sign on a road people drive every day does more for a trustee candidate than almost anything else, because most voters have never heard of any of the seven of us. If you have a spot for one, I will bring it to you and collect it after the election.
Get in touch
Questions, concerns or ideas about our schools?
I'd like to hear from you. I stopped knocking on doors a few elections ago, because I found it bothers as many people as it wins over. So call me or send me an email instead. Ask me anything.
And if you have room for a lawn sign, tell me where and I will bring one over.
- Phone
- 604-998-8039
- mark@markbailey.ca
Three trustees are elected in Area 3. You have three votes. I am asking for one of them.
Advance voting Wednesday 7 and Wednesday 14 October, 8 am to 8 pm. General voting day Saturday 17 October. All dates and polling places.