Provincial Election: Davenport Candidates Debate
September 20, 2011 - 7:22pm — vic
Provincial election debate at the Davenport Perth Neighbourhood Centre. Info is from the Facebook event page:
- Time: Thursday, September 29 · 6:00pm - 9:00pm
- Location : 1900 Davenport Road (in the Sanctuary)
- More Info: This is an opportunity to hear what the leading candidates have say on key issues impacting the community in Davenport. All the four leading candidates were invited. Crisitna Martins, Jonah Schein, and Fank de Jong have confirmed their participation. We hope to see you all there as well. (This is a re-scheduling of the Septemeber 12 meeting). Childcare available.
UPDATE: A video of this meeting has been posted here.
Note: Comments on this page are now closed. Please use the 2011 Ontario Provincial Election forum for followups.
Comments
Provincial Elections: Candidates Debate
Listed below are demands from the election platform of the Communist Party of Canada. Would you say that you - and hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions - agree with most of the following demands? Nothing fringy about them - except perhaps to the mainstream parties and the mass media who don't want to touch many of these issues.
(By the way, just last week the Republican Party in the US held one of its nomination meetings. Guess how many people were on the stage? Nine! I would have thought Perth-Davenport can do the same).
*Good Jobs for All!
*Repeal the HST! Sharply increase taxes on banks and corporations.
*One universal, quality, public, secular school system.
*$7/day childcare; eliminate post-secondary tuition fees
*Quality public health care system; no public/private hospitals.
*Full equality for women, racial minorities, gays and lesbians.
*Affordable housing, rents, transit.
*End police violence; strict civilian control over police.
*Significant increase in minimum wage, pensions, social assistance, disability and EI payments.
*Just settlement of Aboriginal land claims.
*Protect the Environment; Nationalize natural resources, energy.
*Enact anti-scab laws; no union busting, workers’ right to strike. Enforce health and safety laws.
*No to cutbacks, or privatization, of municipal services.
*Reduce Property Tax by 75%; upload education, health, housing, welfare and public transit costs.
*Democratic electoral reform; proportional representation; Permanent residents to have vote in local elections.
*No to war; convert military to civilian spending. Canada out of Afghanistan and Libya now!
Links To All Candidates Here
Hey Omar and everybody else....
A reminder that we did post a link to all the candidates on this site at the top of the page:
https://www.junctiontriangle.ca/node/979#comment-4841
Omar, not having fridge candidates were decided by a committee
Omar, hi my name is Jack Fava. I also live in Davenport riding on Symington Avenue.
The decision to have only the mainstream parties was decide by a debate committee which I was part of, only moving forward to what the residents wanted to hear. I remember one election and Davenport Perth organizing other debates and inviting couple from other parties and they just hijacked the debate, some were really out there with their ideas and stuff. The residents/audience didn't like it and said no more, next time only mainstream parties. I also organized a debate inviting other then the mainstream and they also didn't like it. If it's such a need to have a debate with all the candidates, how come no one has organized a debate inviting all candidates???
Regarding the list of demands, nothing new. They are been spoken about from the other candidates and people like me, nothing new. This is a very deverse riding, not only by the parties they support, but demands as well. You might be taken back, but there might be some residents who might even disagree with some of your demands that you have listed.. JF
democracy
I understand that the upcoming Davenport provincial election debate has been limited to the candidates from the Liberal Party, Progressive Conservative Party, the NDP, and the Green Party. It seems to me that these parties get a great deal of coverage in the media for their platforms and promises. We hardly hear anything of what the other parties might have to offer.
The Davenport Perth Neighbourhood Centre is publically funded. It is surely your job to be inclusive. Besides, by including other parties, even the "main stream" parties would be forced to consider new ideas and the debate becomes much more exciting.
A debate with all the parties represented would go some way to counteract the apathy that the electorate, quite justifiably, feels when given a choice from the narrow range of ideas and options offered by the three largest parties.
It violates the spirit of democracy to exclude parties which might attract support if they were heard. This exclusion in effect puts the Perth Davenport Neighbourhood Centre , in a partisan position. I would hope that my tax dollars were going to promote and extend democracy rather than to limit it.
I would be most grateful for a considered response to the questions raised here.
Thank you,
Sara Barker
Debates
Sara,
This website just lists the event, and I'm not sure that the organizers visit here. You should voice your concerns directly to them.
For what it's worth, I've found that any debates that I've attended where there were more than four or five candidates speaking ended up being a bit of a waste of time. The so-called "fringe" candidates often veer far off-topic (worse than "mainstream" candidates!) and seem to use those debates simply as a place to voice their own agenda, even when they know there's zero chance of coming close to winning.
If someone wants to organize more inclusive debates, that's fine, and probably good to have everyone together in once place at least once during a campaign. But I'd rather have the opportunity to hear the top contenders spend more time speaking/debating.
Just my personal opinion.
Though maybe in a future election campaign, there could be an all-inclusive debate, followed by a "by popular demand" debate with a more focused group.
Top Contendors
I tend to agree with you Vic. I dont attend debates often because the fringe candidates often eat up a lot of time that could be spent hearing from those who actually might win. In the last municipal election some of the candidates were frankly kooky and it was good that they were mostly not included in the Rogers debate. I think it does the public a better service when only those that are top contenders are in the debate. I remember a meeting in the lower half of the ward a few elections ago and some of the Fringers were single issue candidates lacking any knowledge of other issues or even the ward beyond the street where they lived. There was one guy whose ideas were out of a science fiction novel.
Part of a democratic idea is that citizens should make efforts to inform themselves. Never in history has information been more available yet many dont get involved. Some blame the system, I tend to blame the voters.
We had the successful meet and greet at Boo Radley's for the municipal election where all candidates were invited and encouraged to meet people one on one. I thought it was pretty good. I note that one fringe candidate never talked with anybody and instead watched an entire ball game drinking at the bar! That's democracy. : )