The Tumbler Ridge Chamber of Commerce gathered the candidates for the Prince George South Peace Northern Rockies for an all-candidates forum at Club 55 North on Monday, October 7.
Approximately 50 people showed up to hear incumbent Bob Zimmer, Liberal Candidate Mavis Erickson, People’s Party of Candidate candidate Ron Vaillant and Green Party Candidate Catharine Kendall discuss their parties’ positions on issues raised.
Missing was NDP candidate Marcia Luccock.
This was the first (and for some of the candidates, quite probably last) visit to Tumbler Ridge this election cycle, though PPC candidate Ron Vaillant was in town last month for the Coal Forum, just as the election was being called.
Chamber Manager Jerrilyn Schembri says that they were looking to create a different atmosphere for the debate, so decided to hold it at a restaurant. “I would like to say thank you to Amber and staff at Club 55 for being such great hosts for this event, she says. “I feel that the event ran smoothly and there were some great questions from the floor including one from an 11 year old girl.”
Her questions to the candidates was around global warming. Zimmer says the conservative position is to meet the Paris targets without bankrupting the country. “Instead of what some other parties are proposing—to start eliminating resource development—we think we need to be responsible when we do our resource development. We have some of the best standards in the world. We think LNG is a good idea to offset some of the emissions in China. And if you look at some of the more inefficient energy producers over there, if you were if we gave them LNG to produce energy with, we could half of some of those emissions in China. So we think we have a great story in Canada. And the end, the world really needs more Canada, not less.”
Meanwhile, Ron Vaillant says the People’s Party doesn’t believe there’s a climate emergency going on. “We’re not willing to go ahead and shut everything down and account of it. If you want to look at a real emergency, go look at Fukushima That’s a real emergency going on right now.”
Erickson says there is no issue more important for the future than fighting climate change. “And that’s why the liberal team have a strong plan to protect the clean environment and grow the economy, and it’s working for Canadians.”
Kendall, of course, voiced the strongest opinion on the matter. “There’s no doubt that we are in a climate emergency situation. The polar bears have no sea ice to swim to anymore. It’s melting. The permafrost has become soft. We have climate change, changing right here before us.”
There were many other issues raised; to find out more about the candidates in this election, read our interviews with Bob Zimmer and Mavis Erickson in this issue, as well as our interviews with Ron Vaillant and Catherine Kendall last issue. (We approached NDP candidate Marcia Luccock for an interview but did not hear from her by press time.)
Schembri says it was a chance for people to learn more about the candidates in this election. “This was the first All Candidates forum in the region, and Tumbler Ridge set the bar high.”
