The campaign for the referendum on the East Hill Boundary extension has been a divisive force in our city. The very narrow result in the vote on Saturday shows just how evenly divided opinion in Cranbrook is on this issue.

Because the vote was so close, this issue will have the potential to divide our community. At the same time, this is an opportune moment for healing to occur. Healing won’t happen all by itself. Healing will depend on the quality of leadership which will be provided in the days and weeks ahead.

Therefore I call on City leaders, and leaders on both sides of the issue, to exercise imaginative and creative leadership in healing the divisions, and working to bring all citizens into helping discern the future direction of our city. This is not the time to engage in recriminations or to denigrate the results of the referendum. It doesn’t matter any more how you voted. Now is the time to move forward, working together with energy and compassion, to find a new way forward for Cranbrook. The measure of the people who participated in this campaign will be seen in how they respond to the result.

So I call on all those involved on both sides to begin to work together. The primary role will necessarily be taken by City Council. They have been elected to represent all Cranbrook’s citizens. They bear a large part of the responsibility to initiate the healing process. I call on Mayor Scott Manjak, Councillors Davis, Pallesen, Schattschneider, Scott, Wavrecan and Whetham to bury past grievances and to work together to frame the discussion anew. That’s what you were elected to do.

But Council can’t do it alone. The leaders of both the Yes and No sides also need to begin to find ways of working together on a future for Cranbrook which will benefit all the citizens of this city. I call on Brian Sims, Joey Hoechsmann and the other participants in the Yes Campaign, along with Wayne Stetski, Sharon Cross and the other directors of Citizens for a Liveable Cranbrook to begin working together. I invite the supporters of both sides to put aside their campaign rhetoric and begin cooperating with the same energy they showed during the campaign.

One of the most disturbing things about the campaign was the overheated rhetoric. Let me get a little technical here for a moment. In game theory, scholars talk about zero–sum and non–zero–sum situations. In a zero–sum situation, there is a winner and a loser. Non–zero–sum situations, however, are win–win.

Both sides presented the boundary expansion issue as a zero–sum situation. I understand that this is always a danger with the processes of democracy. In a vote, one side wins and the other loses.

The challenge before us now is to move forward into a future which is less polarized, less divisive. I challenge the participants in the debate to move now to a non–zero–sum situation. It’s time to dispense with the exaggerated rhetoric that was used throughout the campaign. It’s time to make this a win–win situation for Cranbrook, and for all its citizens. It’s time to begin working together to heal the divisions that this campaign brought out.

As one of the religious leaders in this city, I call on all involved to work in a healing way for the good of our city.