This past week a healthy sized crowd came to the St. Paul Rec Centre to hear from three federal election candidates, Brian Storseth, Lisa Grant, and Rob Fox. The candidates gave opening and closing remarks outlining the visions and priorities of their respective parties, and took questions from the audience.
Questions were asked on a variety of subjects, from gun control, to Canada’s participation in Afghanistan, health care, the Wheat Board, transportation and railways, old age security, oilsands and the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline. Candidates gave their varying views on the issues.
The evening highlighted the importance of dialogue, of discussing ideas face to face in order to get the best understanding of problems and proposed solutions on the table. The forum showed that often people and parties have different priorities and views, but a similar goal to engage with voters and ideas. The three candidates that showed up to the forum all expressed concern for reducing or eliminating the deficit. The three agreed that the gun registry was not a great idea to start with, but differed on whether it should be tossed, with the Conservative candidate the sole speaker against it.
Attendees also heard views for and against the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline that would connect the oilsands to markets available on the west coast, as well as views on the firefighter tax credits and doctor and nurse loan forgiveness that were in the budget and did not pass. Candidates did not broach the subject of why we’re having this election in the first place or talk about the supposedly ‘historic’ vote of contempt of Parliament.
This election became more interesting as the weeks wore on with the realigning of voter intentions, according to several polls, most notably in Quebec – a phenomena few could have predicted. The new situation in that province shows potential for moving the country forward along a sensible path and for healing grievances that have long passed the expiration date. Canada needs a sober look at federation and the relationships among provinces and a strong government, and hopefully the election will have delivered that. Just as important this election, MPs will head to Ottawa with a fresh outlook from their talks with voters. Hopefully that will keep heads in check until the next round of voting.
We applaud the many people who attended the forum last week, submitted questions and demanded answers. Not one person heckled any candidate and all in attendance showed respect for the right of candidates to hold opposing views. The clash of views on the stage provided a good look at the parties on the ballot, and that’s what a forum should be all about. The candidates in the riding, at least for the three who chose to run a campaign, ran clean campaigns from all appearances, and besides some partisan zingers in the debate - which is what makes that debate worth watching and of interest - candidates showed the respect the public have come to expect from the people wanting to run for public office. Hopefully, the electorate has returned the right people to government that will put the country’s interests first and ahead of partisanship.
