In praise of democracy at mayoral forums

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/10/2014 (4338 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At the end of this election, most reporters and candidates will be sick of debates. Mayoral candidates have crowded into school cafeterias, church halls and chlorine-smelling community clubs a dozen times so far this campaign, and there are still at least seven more to go before voting day.

That’s a lot of precious evenings for candidates to spend talking to rooms of voters who may or may not have made up their minds. Few new ideas emerge. Talking points get rehashed. And most forum organizers tend to be too nice, shunning any chance for candidates to really interact, meaning promises don’t get challenged and sparks rarely fly. Those are some of the reasons Mayor Sam Katz shunned most mayoral debates in 2010 and Gord Steeves is doing so this year.

Pretty regularly, these events get derailed by long-winded and tangled questions posed by single-interest voters, the kind that deflate the whole room. That’s what happened last week at a forum on environmental issues, where questions about oil pipelines and pharmaceuticals in waste water splintered what was otherwise a fairly high-energy event.

Similarly, voters often ask about problems well beyond the power of city hall. The first question to council candidates at a joint River Heights/Charleswood-Tuxedo forum last week involved protecting the city from terrorist threats, as though a councillor can call up CSIS for a little intel on radical factions in Syria. At a mayoral forum about poverty I moderated Friday, people asked about mental-health services and income inequality, among the many issues councillors have virtually no levers to fix. The candidates waded in anyway.

Things can get weird and pointless at public debates. But so what? That’s democracy. These debates offer the rare chance for the guy who can’t find a decent apartment to question his leaders on housing, or for folks cranky about snow clearing to vent to someone other than a 19-year-old 311 call-taker, or for us to actually talk about the damage Winnipeg’s drinking water has done to Shoal Lake 40 First Nation. There is no value in being snobby or dismissive about those moments. In fact, there should be far more of them, especially in the suburbs and especially for a city so universally angry at city hall.

The mayoral forums held so far this campaign have been, for the most part, packed with loud and opinionated people, refreshingly old-school and given to the occasional revelation. For example, at Friday’s poverty forum, an inner-city minister asked whether the mayoral candidates would consider free or cheap bus passes for the poor, who often can’t afford to get to doctor appointments, job-training programs or larger grocery stores. Lynda Trono didn’t get any clear commitment, but it was a practical issue to raise.

Similarly, at an environmental forum two weeks ago, a gentleman asked whether the mayoral hopefuls would make city planners rather than developers draft neighbourhood plans such as the one underway for Ridgewood South. This is an issue that underpins this campaign — the subtle power of developers to create a city that benefits only them. The question got nearly every candidate on the record supporting the move.

There is also value in seeing candidates in the flesh, beyond the focus-grouped campaign or the media narrative. People get to see Robert-Falcon Ouellette’s rabble-rousing closing comments, where he often invokes Louis Riel and then stands at the door to shake every voter’s hand. People get a flash of the quirky Michel Fillion, who made an eloquent speech at one debate about how pity is not enough to solve poverty. You might see a less angry, more mischievous side of Gord Steeves, when he quips “say something nice about me” as Judy Wasylycia-Leis takes the floor. You’ll often see Brian Bowman offer to get Ouellette a glass of water.

Debates are also a chance to spot quality candidates who might have flown under the radar, such as Elmwood-East Kildonan’s Paul Quaye. He was not the main attraction at a recent forum billed as a showdown between Coun. Thomas Steen and NDP-backed challenger Jason Schreyer. But, Quaye, who often appeared bemused by the motor-mouthed Schreyer and the spacey Steen, had a clear understanding of the city budget and a candid, common-sense way about him.

These debates aren’t just about the candidates and they’re certainly not about the jaded reporters sitting in the back. They’re about the people who schlepped to their community club to sit on uncomfortable chairs to measure politicians in person, to listen to their seatmate grumble under his breath, to hear questions they might not have considered, to get beyond a campaign that often seems to be taking place only among the same 17 people on Twitter. It might be sometimes messy, futile and boring, but there’s no better way.

maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca