K'jipuktuk (Halifax) - The Halifax-Dartmouth & District Labour Council (HDDLC) today released an endorsement of nine candidates for Halifax Regional Council. Of course, there are 16 council positions up for grabs, meaning those running in seven districts simply didn't make the HDDLC's grade.

“We're not going to endorse candidates that don't share the labour council's values,” Kyle Buott, president of the HDDLC told The Halifax Media Co-op. "There's a variety of things that we've campaigned on; forward policies, fair wages, creating good jobs, protecting public services and stopping privatization, investing in infrastructure. We surveyed candidates, and we made decisions based on that and our previous dealings with them, and we're very pleased with the slate that we've been able to put forward."

Each candidate who provided an email address on their candidate registration form received an online survey.

"Some of the questions that we asked were whether they supported P3s, public-private partnerships," said Buott. "Obviously the labour movement doesn't support the privatization of social services or structures, so we don't want candidates supporting that. We had questions about supporting quality public services and about what they would do to address sexism and racism in our city, what they would do to create jobs, and whether or not they would support a viable vote procurement policy."

Below is a list of candidates endorsed by the HDDLC:

District 2 - Preston - Porter's Lake - Eastern Shore - Gail McQuarrie

District 3 - Dartmouth South - Eastern Passage - Woodside - Jackie Barkhouse

District 5 - Dartmouth Centre - Bill Zebedee

District 6 - Harbourview - Burnside - Dartmouth East - Jerry Pye

District 7 - Peninsula South - Downtown - Waye Mason

District 8 - Peninsula North - Jennifer Watts

District 9 - Peninsula West - Armdale - John Wimberley

District 10 - Birch Cove - Rockingham - Fairview - John Thibeau

District 15 - Lower Sackville - Ian Wilson