Brooks-Medicine Hat all candidates forum draws full house

The two-hour forum featured NDP candidate Gwendoline Dirk, Alberta Party Leader Barry Morishita and UCP Leader Danielle Smith.

Candidates were given equal amounts of time to share their political views. The first topic under discussion was taxes and business regulations.

Smith says the UCP has found success by decreasing corporate taxes.

“We reduced the corporate income taxes down to eight per cent and now, this year we have record revenue of $6.4 billion.”

While Dirk says the NDP wants to completely eliminate small business taxes and raise corporate taxes.

“We believe that we need to rebuild the middle class.”

Morishita says the Alberta Party would also like to eliminate small business taxes while looking at other avenues to collect taxes.

“We have not said no to a sales tax.”

Next up was the environment. All candidates were in agreement that Canada’s goal to reach net zero emission by 2030 is unrealistic.

The UCP and Alberta Party say a goal of 2050 is more attainable while the NDP say if elected they would have the province on a net zero grid by 2035.

Local and rural healthcare was also a topic of discussion.

Drik says healthcare is facing a crisis right now because of the UCP’s leadership over the last four years.

“Doctors by the hundreds have left this province and they are not coming back unless the government changes.”

Smith says under the UCP hospital and ambulance wait time have been reduced and they are cutting down on the backlog of surgeries.

“By this time next year we will have completely cleared the surgical backlog because we have invested in increasing the amount of operating room time.”

Morishita says the Alberta Party is focused on retaining more family doctors locally.

“For far too long we’ve kind of relied on our doctors and clinics to get us through and get us by.”

The next topic was education and post-secondary.

Dirk says the NDP plans to reduce class sizes by hiring 4,000 more teachers and 3,000 more educational assistants.

“Smaller class sizes are much better. You get more one-on-one attention with students and then you can pick up on their learning needs.”

Morishita says the Alberta Party would reduce the workload for teachers.

“We have to reduce the non-teaching workload on teachers because it’s getting to a point where it’s really interfering with education.”

While Smith would like to have an educational assistant in every classroom to deal with complex teaching issues.

“We need to ensure we get an extra hand on deck to make sure they are dealing with the kids who have behavioural issues, who need the extra time.”

It was a full house with and the audience was engaged with the debate and many felt the questions asked addressed many issues they feel are important in the riding.

CHAT News spoke with attendees after the forum. Here’s what they said:

“(Barry Morishita) talked rationally and he had common sense. That’s what I think.”

“I think Smith has it hands down.”

“I found it was informative and really I got exactly what I expected.”

“I think she (Smith) has Alberta’s best interest at heart and I think she blew the rest of them away.”

“I think the candidates all spoke well and I appreciated that.”

Other topics discussed included the province’s debt, growing the economy and government engagement.

Election day in Alberta is May 29.

by Brendan Miller

Brooks-Medicine Hat all candidates forum draws full house

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