We asked all the candidates the same 10 questions on a wide range of issues plus one specific to their party. Over the six weeks leading up to Election Day, October 19, we present their answers unedited and in their entirety.
This week’s question:
11. Why do you think you would make a good Member of Parliament for Yorkton-Melville?
Brooke Malinoski
11. I think I would make a good Member of Parliament for Yorkton-Melville because I promise I will listen to my constituents. Like I said earlier, I think it’s really important for people in Saskatchewan to have a voice, I think it’s important for youth to have a voice, I think it’s important for women to have a voice and those from small constituencies like Yorkton-Melville, I mean non-urban ridings. I promise to take all those things and I promise to represent people properly in Ottawa. And I promise to stand up for them. If there’s something I disagree with, be it with my party, I promise to listen to my constituents and really vocalize their concerns.
Elaine Hughes
11. I’m a hard worker. I’ve been working as an environmental and social justice activist for the last 12 years and it started with the day I found out that the pig factory was being proposed for this RM and I stood in the post office, paralyzed, just glued to the floor and I said, ‘no bloody way.’ That started it and since then, of course, it’s like everything is connect. The Greens are accused of being tree huggers and only involved in the environment, well, without a clean environment, without clean water, clean air, clean food, it won’t matter what the economy does, how many jets we have, or anything else. We’ve got to get serious about developing sustainable economic activity and not only protect this environment that supports our life and putting those two at odds is another thing that the media and the government likes to spin is you can’t have both, you can’t have a growing economy and protect the environment. That’s more crap, because without a solid sustainable environment, none of the other stuff matters.
Cathay Wagantall
11. People have said to me, ‘how are you going to fill those shoes?’ because Gary has been here for 22 years and gotten more and more of the popular vote as he’s gone. My response is, I won’t fill his shoes, but I walk the same path as far as the integrity goes. It’s very important to me that when I represent people there’s that line between good and bad, right and wrong and a lot of people tend to come up as close to it as they can. My desire is to stay as far away from it as possible. Will I make mistakes? Probably, but my goal is to always represent my people as transparently and openly and as well as I possibly can.
Doug Ottenbreit
11. This is always the most difficult question because I don’t really like boasting. I have a long history of advocating on behalf of other people. I understand the problems of the middle class because I am the middle class. I understand the problems of people living on welfare and living on fixed incomes because I’ve advocated and argued their positions in the past, so I think those skills along with my ability to listen make me more than qualified and able to do this job.
