Comments on: New West all-candidates meeting May 6

By: Neil Powell

Neil Powell — Thu, 07 May 2009 09:38:16 +0000

Dave, I stand corrected. You're right. I do remember that one now. There were a few interesting moments in that one. A few union members who used to work at a brewery and who were not pleased with the way they had been dealt with during some health issues were rather vocal if I remember correctly.

By: Dave Lundy

Dave Lundy — Thu, 07 May 2009 04:32:38 +0000

Actually Neil in the last election between Murray and Puchmayr there was a third all candidates meeting sponsored by the RA's I believe at Lord Kelvin Elementary.

By: Jen

Jen — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:44:41 +0000

Isn’t part of the issue that NW has a bylaw preventing election signs from being placed on civic property?

By: Neil Powell

Neil Powell — Mon, 04 May 2009 12:45:06 +0000

Thanks for your comments, Dave. I don't ever remember an election (certainly not in the years I've headed the MSRA) where the RA's have hosted an all-candidate's meeting for a provincial election. We've regularly done so for the municipal elections though.

I was glad to see mention of the AC meeting in the local press over the weekend.

By: Briana

Briana — Sun, 03 May 2009 07:08:51 +0000

Hey no worries Dave! It was a good reminder to make sure those key details stood out properly. They were kind of buried in the text!

By: Dave Lundy

Dave Lundy — Sun, 03 May 2009 06:13:08 +0000

Sorry about that, must have missed the details. With all the reading and stuff it all becomes a blur.

By: Briana

Briana — Sat, 02 May 2009 14:35:16 +0000

Hi Dave,

I think you may have missed the date & time in the copy above: Time is 7-9pm and the date is Wednesday, May 6. The announcement has already been sent to the papers and has been published online on the Newsleader site (I don’t know when it will be in the print edition).

By: Dave Lundy

Dave Lundy — Sat, 02 May 2009 13:01:56 +0000

I think its good that there’s going to be at least 1 all candidates meeting in New West. But with 4 days left to go before the announced meeting, and no time and location for the event announced, you’ve also missed the deadline for the local paper(s) to publish the same details of the event, to in effect “get the word out”. With due respect to Neil Powell and the RAs, they have limited reach in publicizing events, particularly when they can’t use the local media due to time constraints.

This has been a weird campaign. You wouldn’t really know there was one going on without the election signs everywhere. There’s been very little buzz or enthusiasm. I suppose there are several reasons for it. Perhaps voter burnout, after having gone through 2 federal and 2 municipal elections between the 2005 and 2009 provincial. Alot of it has to do with the lack of candidate vs candidate engagement at all candidates meetings and the lack of them. Wonder why the usual suspects didn’t step up to the plate? For example the New West Chamber of Commerce and yes Neil even the RA’s. Not one of them decided to host an all candidates meeting.

I could put my partisan hat on here, and make the comment that perhaps the BC Libs in New West didn’t want them to happen, and given the Chamber’s traditional stance on support, that perhaps could be one reason. I suppose another could be the fact that the NDP hit the ground running with a new candidate in Dawn Black and time lines in this election, much like the ones for this proposed all candidates meeting have been greatly shortened. But why would I put on my partisan hat for, especially when the Liberal candidate has been pretty much invisible. And throughout the province, Libs have been ducking all candidate meetings, choosing instead to run on the Gordon Campbell gravy train. Ok, I said it, it was a partisan shot.

By: Briana

Briana — Sat, 02 May 2009 06:35:44 +0000

Oh yes, and the location, as stated above is Douglas College, room 2201.

By: Neil Powell

Neil Powell — Fri, 01 May 2009 20:33:32 +0000

Thanks for doing this. I was surprised when I heard last week that there were no all-candidate’s meetings taking place in New Westminster. I had been considering if it would be possible for the RA’s to host one but given the short amount of planning time I really didn’t think it could happen. Kudos to you for getting this going. If you need any assistance please let me know. I will also make sure that our RA members are emailed a notification about this.

By: Briana Tomkinson

Briana Tomkinson — Fri, 01 May 2009 13:30:34 +0000

Thanks Neil – the credit really goes to New West Environmental partners for getting things going. We're really glad that they stepped in to coordinate the meeting, and our involvement is really in spreading the world online and liveblogging the event for New West folk who can't make it in person!