Candidates forum at SIAST

I attended the candidates forum held Oct 26th at the E.A. Davies building on the SIAST Kelsey campus, and there were some great questions from the attendees. My thanks to the students that took the time from their very busy day to show up, and to ask questions, and also to Ashlyn Yablonski for all her work coordinating the forum. Good job Ashlyn! And thanks again for getting the A/C going in time!!

Two significant occurrences from the forum:

One was that the absence of the Saskparty representative (invited but a no show) was noted by the audience. They appeared to take that lack of respect for what it was, disrespectful.

The other was the reaction from the crowd, when Mr. Yachyshen (the PC Party candidate running against me in the Biggar constituency, the only riding in the province with 5 candidates on the ballot) mentioned the Leaders televised debate held the night before (55 minutes I'll never get back), and he deplored the absence of the other four leaders of the registered parties in the debate, pointing out the lack of democratic principle displayed by the consortium of two private broadcasters & one 'public broadcaster' and encouraged by the attendance of the only two leaders invited to #skdb8.

I thanked James for bringing this up, as I was one of those leaders frozen out of that debate, and that drew applause from the crowd.

We needed more time as there were questions left unasked (due to the event going past the allotted hour), so all the candidates spent more time talking to people one to one. All in all an excellent event.