Class was in for the candidates at NWCC

The first face to face meeting between the three candidates in the provincial election took place on April 17th at Northwest Community college, a lunch hour discussion period where students and interested citizens could ask questions on the topics on the issues that they were concerned about.

The Northern View provided a brief review of the noon hour session, a short snapshot of the candidates tone and early observations on the issues.

Not surprisingly considering the venue, among some of the talking points that they reviewed at the session was education, with Green Party candidate suggesting that her party would offer up an immediate tuition reduction of twenty percent and an incentive based plan that would see tuition refunds for graduates who live and work in BC for five years after graduation.

Also high among some of the talking points that they examined, was the environment which was also a key point of discussion for the candidates, with NDP candidate Gary Coons outlining many of the current concerns of his party such as coal bed methane development, renewable resource development and the need to ensure that energy resources remain in the hands of the public.

Liberal candidate Herb Pond outlined the key elements of how his party would handle such developments as the independent power process, building a strong economy and touched on the issue of the proposed Enbridge development and the potential arrival of tanker traffic on the north coast.

The April 17 debate was a warm up of sorts for what will for the main event of April 29th when the issues will get another look by the three candidates at the public forum at the Lester Centre for the Arts.