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.

Countdown to BC's Provincial Election

We archive our items from our election coverage here, below find the link to our Provincial Election page and our page dedicated to coverage of the North Coast riding of the province.

The home for this page can be found on our right hand index under items of special interest.

Countdown to Election Day provincial edition

Countdown to Election Day North Coast edition

Campaign signs and robo calls

Ah yes, the election season is underway...

We spotted a couple of Herb Pond campaign signs today, the blue and red colours of the BC Liberals and the Gordon Campbell team proclaiming the candidacy of the local standard bearer Herb Pond...

And as though to reinforce the launch of the Liberal battle plan, the first robo call of the campaign came across our CityWest landline today, a reminder from candidate Pond that his campaign team will soon be contacting me as to the issues of the day and what we would like to see in our MLA in Victoria.

So to make sure I ask all the right questions and provide the most responsible of feedback on that fateful day when "the call" comes, we've asked the fine local commentators of htmf to provide us with some talking points.

You can log on there and offer up your suggestion for when the robot is replaced by a human voice, or you can leave your suggestion in the space in comments below.

We will try not to take up too much valuable time from the campaign, but hey if they ask we'll be more than willing to try and provide a window on what the riding wishes...

We also look forward to other political campaigns to provide their input, robotically or in person, though we suspect that the personal touch might make for a more rewarding result on election day.