Three out of four Carlton Trail-Eagle Creek candidates were present to discuss key issues of the 2015 federal election at the Humboldt and District Chamber of Commerce’s 2015 Federal Election Forum on Sept. 30.
Humboldt and District Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Debra Nyczai says that candidates brought a lot of “wonderful points.”
“It was very informative and all kinds of questions were asked about everything from seniors issues to health care, including mental health issues, the senate.”
While there were 70 attendees, the average age was somewhere over 50. Green Party candidate Lynn Oliphant said that because of this, some issues were not discussed.
“I think if we had a young group of people we would have been talking about climate change, we would have been talking about the biodiversity crisis,” he said. “They would have been talking about many things that this particular group didn’t.”
NDP candidate Glenn Wright was also expecting a different range of questions but with the older demographic, questions on youth employment, childcare and post-secondary education were not brought up.
Nyczai says that using social media and the different news outlets should have helped draw a younger crowd. Unfortunately, there are more factors than just advertising.
“It’s a combination of a few different things so obviously with what the candidates said making things a little easier might be one aspect, or going into the high schools to be more engaged of the young people to encourage them to vote,” she said.
This was the group that showed though, said Oliphant.
Liberal canadidate Alex Slusar also had this simple philosophy of focus on who did show up and not the people that didn’t.
“There are a lot of different issues that are in the news that are very present on people’s minds...they always come forward in different perspectives and different experiences,” he said.
He is not discouraged by a lack of young voters because it will spark discussion outside the debate.
“I have hope that people when they go home at the end of tonight are going to talk with their kids, talk with their grandkids and discuss some of the things they’ve heard tonight,” Slusar said.
One person that didn’t come to the debate was Conservative candidate, Kelly Block.
According to her campaign office, she’s had to choose between door knocking and attending riding forums.
“My campaign team’s plan right from the beginning was to get me into every city, town, village and hamlet in the riding of Carlton Trail-Eagle Creek in order to knock on doors and hear from as many people as possible in each of these communities,” she said via email. “Voters all across this riding have been very pleased to see a candidate on their doorstep willing to listen to their concerns and ideas. As of Oct. 1, my team and I have knocked on over 5,500 doors.”
To the other candidates, Block’s choice to not attend the forum changed the tone of the discussion.
“When it comes to having a representative democracy, we have to have a strong appearance from candidates to ensure the needs and concerns of the voters are heard,” Slusar said.
Wright says that this shows the Conservative “contempt for democracy.”
“If she would have come, I don’t think we would have been able to fit everybody in the room. We probably would have had double or triple the amount. Which would have meant it’s much more effective than the door knocking she’s doing,” he said.
Oliphant say this was a “keep your head down” strategy.
“It does leave out the Conservative stance on all these issues so it’s a strategic way of avoiding democracy; it’s a strategic way of avoiding saying anything that might not be popular and hence losing the vote,” he said.
From the discussion that did happen, the candidates felt there was a good dialogue between constituents and candidates.
Slusar says he regrets that after the election, he won’t be able to have discussions like this with his fellow candidates because everyone put forward good policies and ideas.
