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Provincial candidates forum held for TV-only audience

Like most things impacted by COVID-19, the provincial all-candidates forum put on by the Battlefords Chamber of Commerce had to make some adjustments in 2020.

Like most things impacted by COVID-19, the provincial all-candidates forum put on by the Battlefords Chamber of Commerce had to make some adjustments in 2020.

The event went on at the Western Development Museum on Sunday, but the public was not in attendance. Instead, the event was entirely a TV show for Access Seven which will be airing the forum on selected dates.

The forum broadcast is scheduled for Oct. 19 at 3 p.m., Oct. 22 and Oct. 23 at 8:30 p.m., and Saturday Oct. 24 at noon.

The candidates for the Battlefords — Jeremy Cockrill of the Saskatchewan party, Amber Stewart of the New Democrats and Harry Zamonsky of the Progressive Conservative party — took part in the hour-and-a-half forum; the Green Party was also invited but did not respond.

The candidates fielded a series of pre-submitted questions posed from the Chamber, as well as questions from media representatives in attendance.

Each stuck to their party’s platform during their opening statements:

Cockrill: “I truly believe that Premier Scott Moe’s plan for a strong Saskatchewan is the one that will bring our province and our community back stronger than ever. The Sask Party plan is about affordability, creating jobs and investing in the public services that Saskatchewan people expect and deserve. It’s about lowering taxes for small business owners and reducing power bills for homeowners renters, farmers and businesses.

Stewart: “We have an economy that wasn’t working for the Battlefords. Bankruptcies are skyrocketing, one in four children live below the poverty line, our boom times and the balanced budget have been squandered. And the shame of it is that no one is talking about how it is impacting the Battlefords in the legislature. We’re going to need an advocate to be in the next legislature. Advocacy is what I do all day every day.”

Zamonsky: “... (we) believe governments are getting too onerous. I will support smaller government (and) reduce taxation based on activities that make the reduction of taxation possible. We would remove or work to remove the PST on goods the taxes have already been collected on, for example resold vehicles. We would work towards a manufacturers tax credit encouraging manufacturing to be set up in the province and primarily in this constituency.”

Candidates were asked questions and spoke on topics such as Indigenous engagement, the digital economy, municipal revenue sharing, crime, and poverty issues.

The News-Optimist posed questions on what the parties would do on the issues of violence against women and on gang violence. On the first question, all candidates voiced support for action on the issue.

Cockrill: “I think with our government investment in both policing at the mental health and addictions, again trying to get to the root issues of the causes of this issue in our community I think our investments show a strong track record on that.

Stewart: “Saskatchewan has the highest rates. We know one in three women will be victims of sexual violence. We know we have extremely high rates of missing and murdered Indigenous women. And we know we need to do better. Saskatchewan is the only province without a sexual assault action plan... we are still steps behind addressing violence against women.”

Zamonsky: “We have a shameful state of affairs when it comes to violence towards women. In our platform we mention more money for mental health and addictions, because the root cause of violence towards women is mental health and addictions.… Then we take it through the education and self-esteem and opportunities.

On gangs:

Cockrill: “Our main focus on that has been the crime reduction team investment that we made there. We have a team in Prince Albert and here in North Battleford. The gang related issues in this community are going to be difficult to work through we feel that with our investments in the crime reduction teams and in other policing initiatives we’re going to make some strides on that.”

Stewart: “We are not going to police our way out of the situation. At the end of the day people join gang for a reason. They are looking for a sense of community, they are looking for a sense of belonging. And so we need to give them an alternative... our community coming together and providing an alternative is how we are going to address the gang situation.”

Zamonsky: “Self esteem and education. If we start early enough, we’ll make inroads... you can’t throw the kids in jail and then throw them back out again. If you take any part of their life away from them you must put something into that life. That goes right back to education.”

The three candidates were also asked about whether there was any appetite to support a feasibility study for North Battleford and Battleford to form one municipality.

But the three candidates did not express much enthusiasm for that idea.

Stewart said she did not feel it was the role of the MLAs to “tell the municipality what they need to do.” Cockrill also said any possible amalgamation should be led by the mayors of Battleford and North Battleford.

Zamonsky was totally opposed to amalgamation for Battleford and North Battleford, but did support the idea of rural municipalities switching to a county system.

You can see the full debate on Access 7 TV.