As promised, here we go...
Wednesday evening was the night of the second all-candidates election forum in the riding of Edmonton Strathcona. Held at the Myer Horowitz Theatre in the University of Alberta Students' Union Building, six out of the seven candidates duked it out (Marijuana Party candidate, Dave Dowling, was unaccounted for...).
The evening started out great, the candidates showed up and respectfully lined up on stage, waiting to speak to the mass of about 200-300 Edmonton Strathconians who trekked the -5 snowless conditions to be there.
As things started out, the candidates first answered three questions prepared by the Advocacy Department of the U of A Students' Union (the wonderful group who organized the event). The three included questions on topics ranging from student debt to youth apathy. Though most of the answers were standard, Conservative incumbent, Rahim Jaffer, brought up the idea of Income-Contingent Student Loan Repayment. An idea, which isn't bad on it's own, just that every jurisdiction which has enacted it has seen tuition deregulation and massive tuition hikes, which equals larger student debt.
Mr. Jaffer of course, was a smooth operator as usual. Watching from the audience, you could tell he'd done this a couple times before (finishing his answers 58 seconds on the minute, etc).
Andy Hladyshevsky, the Liberal Candidate, was in our mind, the best speaker of the evening. He answered all the questions with energy, and left you remembering his comments afterwards.
Hladyshevsky Quote of the evening: "I don't like the way the Conservatives are spreading the word 'corruption' like ketchup into every thing that every good person in government stands for."
Linda Duncan, the New Democratic Party candidate, answered all the questions intelligently, but that was all. Though Ms. Duncan has, in our opinion, the most impressive resume of all the candidates, she didn't have very many memorable quotes of the evening and didn't overly impress us (though we still may vote for her on the 23rd).
Mike Fedeyko, the Progressive Canadian candidate, was a pretty good speaker. He also made sense. Other than the Progressive Canadian Party being the Progressive Canadian Party, he made them sound pretty good. Not having actually read their official policy positions on their website, Mr. Fedeyko made their policies sound fairly moderate, centrist, and filled with common sense.
Green candidate, Cameron Wakefeild, also did a fairly good job.
Kevan Hunter, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) candidate (who is rumoured to be the son of Edmonton Centre Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) candidte Peggy Morton), was most definitely the most entertaining candidate at this forum - best quotes of the forum as well! He also continued on the theme of
Here are some of the better Kevan Hunter quotes...
"If we really want to do our part in helping the real world, we need to stop recking it."
"You have a choice between negative ad's… and fascism."
"I think fascism in this country is a serious concern"
As well, some dumbass in the audience asked Andy Hladyshevsky a question comparing the Liberal attack ad's to Hitler's tactics in Nazi Germany... Andy had a kick ass response... here is part of it...
"I'll give you a comment to that, that person may be flat ass wrong. No one is going to trivialize the Holocaust in this auditorium, not in Myer Horowitz's auditorium!"
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6 comments:
Comrade Kevan is Comarad Peggy's son.
Okay, that's really interesting. I don't know whether it's a gender thing or a partisan thing, but I had a very different impression of the three main candidates. I agree pretty much about Duncan's decent-but-not-spectacular speaking abilities, but I thought she came across as by far the most sincere and the most human. Jaffer was also quite good, and seemed far less "professional politician" than I'd expected. Though I didn't agree with what he had to say, I can see why people who do would vote for him.
Hladyshewsky, on the other hand, was awful. I saw him at the forum at the Knox Met church, and apart from the very weird comment he made about Ontario and B.C. already having proportional representation, I came away thinking he was a very good speaker (if a little overly slick for my tastes). But he just did not appeal to me at the Horowitz forum. And that weird comment he made about picturing him in a loincloth? The group of women sitting next to me started giggling, clearly because they were doing exactly as instructed and picturing him in a loincloth! I'm sorry, but that is not the image that you want to be projecting to a group of people whose votes you want to get. Gross, gross, gross.
really? though the loincloth comment was slightly disturbing/funny, we thought Ms. Hladyshevsky did a good job.
Ms. Duncan's performance in all the debates didn't grab us at all. She almost had an upity academic tone. Mind you, she may just not be an amazing public speaker, but she has an incredible resume and we will most likely be supporting her.
thanks, eugene. :-)
Actually, Dave Dowling didn't make it because he is not allowed in the Students' Union Building. Last time he was here he complained about the pain resulting from the rickety chair he was forced to sit on that Campus Security had to be called in. It's all on Dave's website. Go take a look.
merci beaucoup, mr. henderson.
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