Thunder Bay all-candidates forum draws few candidates

THUNDER BAY — Of the 13 people running for office the the city's two provincial ridings, only four attended Thursday evening's all-candidates forum.

Only the Liberal and NDP candidates participated in the event.

Several Thunder Bay and area organizations hosted the community forum, inviting all local candidates to take questions and discuss their platforms in public.

Thunder Bay-Superior North NDP incumbent Lise Vaugeois and Liberal challenger Brian Hamilton attended, along with Thunder Bay-Atikokan hopefuls Liberal Stephen Margarit and Judith Monteith-Farrell of the NDP.

Absent were Progressive Conservative incumbent Kevin Holland (Thunder Bay-Atikokan), and Thunder Bay-Superior North PC challenger Rick Dumas, Green candidates Eric Arner (Thunder Bay-Atikokan), and John Northey (Thunder Bay-Superior North) and challengers in both ridings for the Northern Ontario Party, the New Blue Party, and — in the case of the city’s north-side riding — one independent.

“All registered candidates in the Ontario Election for the ridings of Thunder Bay-Superior North and Thunder Bay-Atikokan were invited to participate,” said a press release from organizers.

The low participation from those running for office “was a bit disappointing,” said Jason Rasevych, the president of the board of directors for the Anishnawbe Business Professional Association — one of the organizers. “But nonetheless, it was still a great turnout as far as people that attended and we were still able to have an engaging session with the candidates that did show up.”

The panel discussion was hosted by a partnership of the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce, the Anishnawbe Business Professional Association, the Aguasabon Chamber of Commerce, the Thunder Bay and District Labour Council, the Thunder Bay Public Library and the Thunder Bay Real Estate Board. It was held at Confederation College.

The candidates were asked questions submitted by the organizations and from the public in advance of the event. Candidates had 90 seconds to answer with no interruptions or back-and-forth debate.

Generally, while the Liberal and NDP candidates differed slightly on certain points and periodically reiterated details about their parties’ platforms, they were largely in agreement in attacking the Conservative government’s record on things like affordability, addictions, housing, northern highway safety, ensuring informed consent from First Nations for industrial development and other policy areas.

While the candidates largely didn’t attack each other’s party platforms, Vaugeois made some parallels between how the Liberals and Conservatives have governed Ontario in the past.

“We'd also like to be … in the business of building co-ops again,” she said, responding to a question on affordable housing. “We haven't done that kind of thing since the 90s — Liberals and Conservatives have said no, we say yes, it's time we brought that kind of housing back with the support of government.”

Her Thunder Bay-Superior North Liberal challenger, Hamilton, didn’t directly respond to that charge, instead saying that cutting development charges and the land transfer tax (policies that are in the Liberal platform) are key, as is working with other stakeholders.

“We do need partners at the table,” he said. “We do need partners to lead the projects and have provincial funding ultimately backstop the projects that are moving forward.”

Overall, Rasevych said, despite the few candidates that took part this time, he feels forums like this are important and supports continuing to do them.

“As long as we have an ability to co-host, we'll continue to do so with our partners and raise the voice of Indigenous perspectives in these candidates debates moving forward.”