Candidates Spar Over Missing & Murdered Aboriginal Women,TPP
From left, Trent Derrick, Adam De Kroon, Todd Doherty, Tracy Calogheros, Sheldon Clare, Richard Jacques – photos 250 News
Prince George, B.C. – A standing room only crowd of roughly 350 people were treated to a spirited all-candidates forum last night at UNBC’s Canfor Theatre.
Moderated by Dr. Tracy Summerville and hosted in partnership by UNBC, the PG Citizen, CKPG, and The Prince George Chamber of Commerce, it included candidates in the Cariboo-Prince George (C-PG) and Prince George-Peace River-Northern Rockies (PG-PR-NR) ridings (Gordon Campbell & Libertarian Todd Keller were absent).
It touched on a wide variety of topics including whether or not the candidates in PG-PR-NRs supported an inquiry into missing & murdered Aboriginal women.
The NDP have promised to initiate an inquiry within 100 days of winning government, something its candidate Kathi Dickie said was long overdue.
From left, Barry Blackman, Bob Zimmer, Kathi Dickie, Matt Shaw, Elizabeth Biggar
“I was subjected to societal racism from the time I was born all the way through,” she said. “This is shameful on Canada. 1,200 women missing or murdered? We’ve worked with the RCMP on the most recent unsolved murder in our community and they don’t have enough resources to tackle the job.”
Conservative incumbent Bob Zimmer, who said his party does not support an inquiry considering 42 studies have already been conducted on the issue, also clarified a controversial comment he made at a debate earlier this week where he said a “lack of a job” was the cause of missing and murdered women.
“My point was, I was making a statement based on an RCMP study that had already been done on missing and murdered Aboriginal women and one of the risk factors listed was what I spoke about,” he said.
“But just to be completely clear, I believe everybody is created equal, I honestly do. I have a daughter, I have a mother, I have a wife and I look at them all the same and I can’t imagine a tragedy worse than losing a child.”
Progressive Canadian candidate Barry Blackman didn’t indicate whether or not he would support an inquiry but asked why “we don’t just hire an army of private investigators and just have them go out and find out independently.”
Liberal Matt Shaw called the issue “a national emergency” noting “the perception out there is that if it were any other demographic, if this would have been white women in the Greater Toronto Area it would have been on people’s radar.”
Meanwhile Green candidate Elizabeth Biggar called on Canadians to “talk about the cultural genocide that was inflicted.”
She also pledged her party would support an inquiry “day one in office.”
It was standing room only inside the Canfor Theatre
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was the hot topic of discussion for candidates in the Cariboo-Prince George riding, most of them lamenting the fact so few details are available on it.
“I’m a researcher and I’ve tried to find the details on this deal,” said Green candidate Richard Jacques. “All I know is most was done in secret without consultation with the Canadian public.”
Adam De Kroon of the Christian Heritage Party largely agreed while expressing concern over a key sector of the economy.
“From what I have read of sections that have been leaked – there are concerns about what the document might do to our dairy industry.”
Liberal Tracy Calogheros took a wait and see approach to the matter.
“I too would like to see the details of that agreement before I pass judgement on it,” she said. “I think it’s premature for Tom Mulcair to say he won’t support it.”
While also in the dark regarding the contents, Trent Derrick of the NDP took a largely negative view of the deal.
“I think one of the biggest challenges is we don’t now all the facts and won’t until after the election,” he said.
“But what facts we do know is the Conservative government has signed 23 free-trade agreements since they’ve been in power and we’ve lost 400,000 manufacturing jobs. What we do know about this deal is they’re not good negotiators.”
Not surprisingly, Conservative Todd Doherty suggested the agreement provided Canada a world of opportunities.
“The 23 trade agreements we’ve signed opens Canada up to 60% of the world’s economy. We are a trading nation,” he said. “We’re creating jobs, we’ve go the strongest job growth record in the G7. 1.3 million jobs since 2006.”
Independent Sheldon Clare said he knew little of the deal but expressed an open mind.
“I think that we do need to have good trade deals that do put people back to work in good high-paying jobs. Not low paying jobs which I think a lot of the jobs that have been created are.”
Comments
God forbid anybody works together nowadays to actually solve problems
I was pleasantly surprised with the way the candidates in the PG-Peace riding conducted themselves. Their respectful debate was a stark contrast to the Cariboo-PG candidates, one of whom was confrontational right from the start, and set the tone.
Some of the other issues that riled people were doctor shortages (amid CPC claims of having increased transfer payments), and the furor at the end when it seemed that the CPC candidate had been caught in a lie about having read the fine details of the TPP.
It will be interesting to see how these ridings play out.
Like a bunch of kids, blaming each other, empty promises. Oh, and why does the NDP keep going on about this ‘inquiry’ they are going to launch into the missing women? There is an inquiry every day of the week people, it’s not like the RCMP aren’t always trying to figure out such a violent crime spree. It’s a slap in the face to everybody involved with crime prevention to brag about some mysterious inquiry, when it’s already happening.
Lets remember that a doctor shortage in this area does not necessarily mean there is a shortage of doctors. You have to look at the whole Province to get a sense of where the shortages are.
Also the responsibility for doctors lies with the Provincial Government. Once they receive transfer money from the Federal Government for health care they make the decision where it is spent.
We are now getting to the point where we are paying huge salaries to have doctors locate in remote areas, along with other benefits.
So the shortage is more than a shortage of funds. Perhaps people should look further into the issue before they blame the Feds.
There is a consensus that Hillary Clinton is against the TPP at this time because of the pending election in the USA. She was in favour of it a year ago. There is no doubt that if she is elected she will be in favour of it again.
Such is the way of politics.
Palopu – did your favorite Todd read the TPP? Another clone of Dick Harris ..
or is he only spouting at the mouth?
It won’t matter one iota who you elect, despite all the pontificating against the TPP it will still go ahead. In the economy as a whole, NONE of those running can see any other way of distributing sufficient ‘incomes’ to allow consumers to totally meet the accounted for ‘costs’ of production, of which those ‘incomes’ are only a PART. And with continuing technological advancement an ever declining PART. The ONLY way any of them can see how this increasing deficiency can be made up, or at least slowed down, is to have a trade with other countries that’s expanding. Not a trade as in our stuff for their stuff, though that does happen, but rather a trade of our stuff for their MONEY. Which is used as an excuse for the Bank of Canada to make up the needed deficiency in OUR money. We can NEVER use THEIR money to buy THEIR stuff. Physically, it means your country is getting poorer, not richer. Since you’re exporting more than you’re importing. But you’ll have ‘jobs’, and can all work your way straight into poverty. So be happy in your work. Which Party will come to the realisation this is what is happening first? My guess is it’ll be the Conservatives. The Liberals and NDP, never.
I missed the first half of the debate for PG North but my two favourite parts of the Cariboo PG riding debate were Sheldon Clare calling out NDP Trent for his naive and misinformed views on abolishing the senate. Although it might sound good in a sound bite reopening the Canadian Constitution is just not realistic.
The second part was Tracey Calogheros calling conservative candidate Todd out for his bold face lie to the room about himself having read every detail on the TPP contract. It shows that the Harper Government just cultivates and promotes nothing but lies.
Can’t trust Harper or Todd.
In regards to the TPP ,no one has read it yet.
It is still being compiled.
I rather be one of the countries setting the terms and conditions.
Instead of the country that comes hat in hand and asking to join.
Where your terms and conditions could be dictated to you.
All the countries that have signed the agreement.
Now have to take the TPP back home for debate and approval.
By their national governments.
Todd can not read he just looks at the pictures……if it comes out of a conservatives mouth …well we know…..
I suspect that Todd meant he read every detail pertaining to the TPP that has been made public to this point in time.
Everyone knows that the TPP agreement itself has not been released. In fact it has not even been published as it was only agreed to in the last few days, so not likely anyone in Canada has read any of the details.
I know Todd can read, it’s the fact he told the room he had read the TPP in detail, every word. Then he was called on it and went with I saw a summary.
He is showing us that he is ready to take off in dick’s foot steps.
Another wasted MP seat
Everyone in the room including you Dave knew that the TPP agreement has never been written nor even agreed on, so how could Todd or anyone else have read it in detail?
What he read in detail was all the correspondence, publications, etc; pertaining to the TPP.
Cant trust Dave.
The economy is terrible. Conservatives have managed terrible growth. Probably sold us out on TPP just like the softwood lumber deal. Unemployment rate is up.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/unemployment-rate-rises-to-7-1-in-september-even-as-canada-adds-12-000-jobs-1.2602662
Todd wasn’t simply misinterpreted regarding the TPP claim. He tried to make it very clear he had read ALL the details, it wasn’t until Tracy pushed and pushed he finally admitted it was a summary.
Guess what, a summary, likely written by the Harper Govn’t is going to be a heavily biased document. If he’s lying about things like this already, when he could have easily have answered honestly, what can we expect if he were MP.
It was nice to see he can actually show up to a large debate. Was starting to think his alter ego was santa claus, never saw the guy anywhere.
Palapoo, you can try and spin Todd’s comments how ever you want. But everyone there including you knows he lied.
Ckpg was there, it has been recorded. He told everyone he read it in detail.
You are always going off about facts time to check yours.
Yup. Doherty has read the TPP and Mike Duffy lives in P.E.I.
Wink wink.
Why is the focus on missing Aboriginal women?? other women also go missing, like Anita T. what has happened to her? it appears she has been written off. She was a pretty , happy, loving , working young woman and she is gone.
Ha ha ha ha, now we know why Todd never showed for previous candidate debates. We would have found out earlier that he is in over his head.
Way to go Tracy!!
Dave. Give it a break. It obvious that neither Todd nor anyone else could have read the details of an agreement that was only concluded a few days ago.
Common sense tells you that he was referring to reading a summary of the agreement, which I might add gives him more knowledge of the agreement than others at that meeting.
Make as much mileage out of this issue as you can, because your going to need all the help you can get in this election.
PS. Look at the poll in regards to public forums on this sight and you will see that not to many people are following the debates. At this point in time I would suggest that most people have made up their minds on how they will vote, and in fact a large number have voted already.
Palopu, so you are trying to tell us that Todd had an advantage by having been given a detailed summary and the others were in the dark?
Conclusion: More Harper manipulation if it is true! The honest way would have been to release Harper’s (Todd’s) special detailed TPP summary to the public, i.e. to all parties and candidates! Especially since the TPP is touted by the Cons as the greatest achievement and of tremendous benefit to Canada! Something does not add up, as usual! Even the media does not have that information. What are the Cons hiding?
Ahh the cons….Destroyers of Democracy,knowledge,Lost our seat at UN,heald in contempt of Parliment 2wice..40 under investagation he has appointed,should not even be pm now ..he commited fraud to get there …NOT this time round….we will be voting,the Turd always rolls from the top…Changing of the gard coming…..Wikileaks ..TPP not good…..more to come….ttfn….
Palopu wrote: “At this point in time I would suggest that most people have made up their minds on how they will vote, and in fact a large number have voted already.”
You probably meant to write “at this time” … :-)
in any case, advance polls are open today to Monday. I will be voting on at least one of them, unless they allow me more than one vote this time around.
I am looking forward to how many have voted in the advance polls. If it is higher than normal, I believe it has been an indicator in the past that change is about to happen.
This whole idea of dropping the writ so early was simply another stupid idea of Harper’s which cost the country more than it should have.
I believe this riding might actually swing to the Liberals. Seems like a combination of dislike for Harper, disappointment in Harris’ 22 year performance, and finally Todd ducking and weaving any hard questions or showing up to events for that matter.
Todd feels like deja vu… didn’t we just have an absentee MP?
gopg2015. I meant **at this point in time** ie; the time between now and election day.
A large number of people have already voted at the Elections Canada office on Redwood Street. They could not wait for the advanced polls to vote. The same thing will happen at the advanced polls. There is nothing to indicate a large turn out would be detrimental to the Conservatives. In fact it could be the opposite.
I don’t expect many Conservative voters to change their vote, so if that’s the case, then they are in a pretty good position to win.
Palopu, I’m sure that’s what you here in the campaign office. But luckily it’s not the reality
You have to question the methodology of the surveys now too. How do they get the phone numbers? They have to be listed. Which numbers are listed? Landlines only. A huge amount of the younger demographic don’t both with landlines anymore. You’re getting a snap shot of the older demographic which tend to lean more conservative. I don’t think harper is sitting as comfortably as he would like to believe.
“A huge amount of the younger demographic don’t both with landlines anymore”.
I suggest that notion needs some rethinking. I just got rid on my land line and I am not the only one in the older age group that has done that.
Irrespective of that, there are still enough representative voters to be found among the land line users as long as they answer age and socioeconomic questions relatively honestly. Any pollsters who don’t are useless anyway.
As to the question of which phones are listed …. it costs to get a phone unlisted … so there is a bias right there even with landlines. The question is how much of a bias is that. I am not a pollster, is anyone on here a pollster or someone who has researched that?
The reason I am going to vote in the early polls, one never knows when one will get run over by a car in this community … ;-)
“the time between now and election day.”
Great … one more redundancy …. why one earth would the range of time looked at for casting a ballot go beyond election day???
Palopu wrote: “I don’t expect many Conservative voters to change their vote.”
That is obvious from your many posts on this matter. I am not sure on what you base that opinion, other than your personal feelings. If that were always the case, things would never change as to which party is in power.
From what I can tell, the anyone but Harper movement is strong. The only problem is there does not seems to be a clear movement whether those voters who voted Harper the last time but are looking at another party are going NDP or Liberal. Around here, because of the Pierre Trudeau phobia in the West, it will likely go to the NDP. That is not true in the Maritimes and in Central Canada. With a three way split possible there, BC may actually hold the deciding numbers which determines the majority party and PM of a minority government.
gopg2015. Put on your thinking cap. These two ridings took 50% of the vote in 2006. 55% in 2008 and 56% in 2011. So an increase in each election. The last election of course got the Conservatives a majority Government.
All the pollsters and other information available tells you that the Conservative base is secure and has been for a number of years. Further more the Conservatives get most of their money from donations of the average middle class Canadians. Unions and Business can no longer make contributions to political parties.
So there has to be a major shift in how people vote to get any changes. In these ridings it means that the Conservative vote would have to move and that’s not likely. The Liberals in order to gain ground would have to take votes from both the Conservatives and the NDP. Big job. The NDP vote rarely shifts, except in places like Quebec and Alberta, which I think that we can all agree was an anomaly.
There will be some shifting of course, however if you split the left vote, you make it more difficult for them to win. The other candidates including the independent will not be a big factor.
Palopu … let’s talk after the 19th …. There are multiple scenarios and they will all be brought to rest after the 19th and we can all do some post mortems as to why what happened that day happened.
Both the before debates and post mortem debates are a waste of time. I prefer to quote the common saying: “it is what it is”. … or better still, “et kütt wie et kütt”, a basic law of the Rhineland.
The rest of Canada demand Chiefs step down as they have presided over decades of deficient leadership resulting in dysfunctional societal lack of support for their women.
I borrowed the above from another blog. I believe it says a lot about the chiefs and councils trying to deflect some blame and responsibility from themselves and the despicable NDP politicking the issue for political gain.
Comments for this article are closed.