I arrived early for the Rogers debate sponsored by the Collingwood Chamber of Commerce at the Legion Hall. The reason I arrived early was because the house was packed for the Federal debate back in May and I wanted to get a good seat. Needless to say the house was only half full and I would suspect that the vast majority of the people in attendance were staff from the 4 campaigns.
The evening started off with the normal introductions of the media panel and the candidates. First to speak was Mike Schreiner the Leader of the Green Party, and the local candidate. Mike is a very well spoken person and it showed this evening. Mike knew the issues not only facing the residents of Simcoe Grey, but the rest of Ontario. His focus was on building from the bottom up, and by this I mean placing a focus on local communities and local governments. Most of his responses to the questions from both the media panel and people in attendance was very well recieved. The one thing about Mike is that he had all the right answers and was not reading off a script or big binder in front of him. After the debate I went out with a few friends and we talked about the debate and the overwhelming response was Mike was amazing, but he's with the wrong party.
Next up to speak was NDP candidate, David Matthews. I felt he did a somewhat good job, but he was reading from a prepared script. He even passed on answering one of the questions which was a first for me to see happen at a debate. Either his talking points did not cover parts of the question, or he was just cut off guard and could not give any sort of answer. He did somewhat attack both the PC's and the Liberals on areas of Health Care, Low Income Housing, and Education.
Next up was PC Jim Wilson. Wilson seemed to me to be a bit bored, along the lines of why do I have to be here tonight. I found Jim to be towing the party line, but not that sincere when he talked about the PC Change Book. He did raise his voice a bit at one time during the evening, but he seemed to kind of hold back a bit from taking a fit which he's well known for doing. Jim was heckled a bit when the question was asked about the PC tough on crime attitude with chain gangs, GPS placed of sex offenders and so on. Our crime rate is at levels we had in the 1960's. I don't understand why the PC's would want to waste all this money on chain gangs, GPS, and more jails when we have over 1 million people living below the poverty line. So I think Jim is just starting to show that he's tired and burnt out just a bit.
Closing off the pack was Liberal candidate, Donna Kenwell. I found her to be well spoken, however she did say several times that things could be done better and for a candidate who's the rep. for the party that's been in government for 8 years she should have been highlighting more of the positives that the Liberals have done over 8 years instead of saying that things could be done better. In her opening remarks she failed to mention anything about her family, which is something they teach you in candidate school that you need to tell a story, your story to engage the audience.
So did Wilson attack the Liberals? yes, but I did expect more as he has 8 years of a record to go after. Did the Liberals attack the PC's? yes she did, but again it was more of what Harris/Eves did in government then the Hudak Change Book. Did the NDP attack both the Liberals and PC's? yes he did and it was expected. So what did Mike Schreiner do? Well he really did not do much attacking as he stayed away from all of the back and forth between the 3 other parties and just focused on changing politics as usual and focus more on our local communities.
Questions from the evening were from the Wind Turbines to the Quarry, to Health Care, to Education, and everything else in between.
So here's my rating of our the candidates did:
1st place goes to Mike Schreiner
2nd place goes to Jim Wilson
3rd place goes to Donna Kenwell
4th place goes to David Matthews
Until next time!
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