One candidate is feeling slighted that he was not included to participate in a local candidates debate organized by the Mount Allison Students’ Union.
Last night, three of five candidates for Memramcook-Tantramar participated in a debate held at town hall and broadcast on CHMA and Facebook live.
Megan Mitton, Maxime Bourgeois, and Carole Duguay answered questions in French and English from moderator and Mount Allison politics professor Mario Levesque.
Although former People’s Alliance candidate Heather Collins had been invited to the debate, she declined to participate.
The fifth candidate, Jefferson George Wright, an independent, was not invited.
That, said Wright after last night’s debate wound to a close, was a “travesty of democracy.”
The debate was organized by the Mount Allison Students’ Union, and president Jon Ferguson explained that the decision to exclude independent candidates was made early on in the planning stage.
“This is a decision that the Mount Allison Students Union made in consultation with our moderator, who is of course the head of the political science department, an expert on Canadian politics, Dr. Mario Levesque,” says Ferguson.
Ferguson said the union was advised that independent candidates were not typically invited to debates, based on the screening criteria used in televised federal leadership debates that tend to eliminate anyone not in a registered party.
Wright told CHMA that the fact that he is not a member of registered party is central to his political philosophy.
“It’s incredibly unfair that a liberal arts college would feel comfortable acting this way, when I was able to clearly explain the discrimination,” says Wright. “I’m an independent candidate for a reason. The political parties are the problem. So to be denied because I’m not affiliated with a political party is rather contrary to my policies, which should have been taken into account.”
Ferguson says timing also played a role in denying Wright a seat at the debate table. He says Wright first emailed on Tuesday to request a meeting, to which Ferguson replied quickly. Wright then replied on Wednesday, several hours before the debate was slated to begin and asked to be included in the proceedings.
“We decided that it just it simply wasn’t feasible,” says Ferguson. “We didn’t have the mics from Moncton. It was too last minute. And I regret that this is something that upsets Jefferson Wright. This is definitely an opportunity for us to think about how we host debates.”
Ferguson says it was challenging to pull together a local candidates debate in such a short election period, and during a pandemic.
Due to public health restrictions, only 10 people could be in the room during the debate.
“I definitely will mention this to my successors and the Students’ Union,” says Ferguson. “We should be very careful about making sure, and putting a lot of thought, when possible–maybe not during a pandemic–but when possible, into who is and who isn’t invited. That being said, I do stand by the decision that was made with the restrictions that we faced.”