Conservative incumbent Randy Hoback has the mic as he and fellow federal candidates for the Prince Albert riding gather for the Prince Albert and District Chamber of Commerce forum. (Becky Zimmer/paNOW Staff)

By Becky Zimmer

Prince Albert candidates

Candidates tackle issues during chamber election forum

Sep 8, 2021 | 10:10 AM

Members of the Prince Albert constituency gathered to discuss important issues of the election during the all candidate forum hosted by the Prince Albert and District Chamber of Commerce last night.

Candidates had valuable minutes to discuss questions; from mental health and addictions, to housing and the economy, posed by the chamber and forum attendees.

Five of the six candidates for the Prince Albert riding were in attendance with Maverick party candidate, Heather Schmitt, unable to attend due to her focus on harvest.

Bill Powalinsky, incoming chair of the chamber, said the attendance by both the candidates and the audience, both online and in person, was great to see.

“What people do is they get a chance to look at their local candidates and ask questions of them and hear the responses to the questions of the day. I think for anybody who’s undecided at this point these forums are very helpful in helping people arrive at an informed decision.”

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Questions asked of the candidates, including the new ones that were presented to them during the forum, flowed into one another, said Powalinsky, which made for very “organic” discussion.

Randy Hoback (Incumbent) – Conservative Party of Canada

On vaccine passports: “There is a federal responsibility to provide that data or information to other countries if you’re travelling abroad…Provincially, in your businesses, that’s all provincial jurisdiction, that is not federal jurisdiction and we will not interfere with the province’s right to decide what they want to do.”

On affordable childcare: “You can have an Ottawa prescribed plan of $10 per day where in Kinistino, you have no access to it, or you can have a Conservative plan where it’s a direct payment to the family and then they can choose a neighbour, a grandmother, another parent. They have options to look at what works best for their situation.”

Estelle Hjertaas – Liberal Party of Canada

On current labour shortages: “A lot of the people that are using CERB are of course front line workers in industries like restaurants, grocery stores, other small businesses, and they need to be able to protect themselves too, and their families. What the Liberal government is promising is to extend the Canada Recovery Hiring Programs, as well as the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy which helps employers to continue to pay part of the wages of employees to bring people back.”

On housing: “We’re all in agreement to end foreign buying. The Liberal government promises to ban foreign purchases of homes for two years. In terms of helping people buy homes, there’s an introduction to a tax free savings account where first time homebuyers can save up to $40,000 to put towards a mortgage and also doubling the first time homebuyers tax credit.”

Joseph McCrea – People’s Party of Canada

On equalization: “The current program is unfair and inefficient both for citizens of richer provinces that do not receive equalization payments, like Saskatchewan and Alberta whose economies are hurting because of a downturn in the oil sector, and citizens of the provinces in a state of dependency and underdevelopment.”

On truth and reconciliation: “Similar to the RCAP (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples) from 1994, the Liberal government hasn’t taken it seriously. They sort it all through and picked up a few solid election ready issues and even did a terrible job of those. There are still water problems on reserves, housing shortages, unfunded schools and no national suicide prevention program.”

Ken MacDougall – New Democratic Party

On increases to the Canadian health transfer to provinces: “My concern is the fact that what we’re doing in Canada is we are still not educating enough doctors, nurses… so they can accommodate the needs of the health services…I want to see a substantial number of increases to educational programs that boost our capacity to have doctors on call so we’re not put into situations in the future like COVID.”

On conditions in long term care homes: “Why were the senior’s homes hit so badly in the first place? It’s because of the fact that governments, thanks to the lobbyists, were prepared to short sight the number of inspectors for these homes so that lots of them never got inspected…If we’re going to put the policies in place, let’s also put the people in place that are going to make sure the rules and regulations are enforced.”

Hamish Graham – Green Party of Canada

On mental health and addictions: “Number one, provide a clean drug supply because you cannot be rehabilitated if you’re dead. There’s a huge amount of mental health issues due to the fallout from residential schools and instead of blaming people that have these problems, I think that we should be providing help to heal multigenerational trauma.”

On a balanced federal budget: “The Green platform on this: there’s going to be a lot of work on this in the green economy. We’re not a party that believes in unsustainable growth. We believe that things will get done if we have the political will to do it. We have the technology to solve a lot of the problems that are facing now and if we pursue those we’re going to generate income in a more sustainable fashion.”

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becky.zimmer@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @bex_zim