A third chance for Yellowknife residents to gauge the views of the Northwest Territories’ four federal election hopefuls has been cancelled.
Edge YK says its event, scheduled for Tuesday, October 14, won’t go ahead after Conservative candidate Floyd Roland failed to confirm his attendance and Liberal candidate Michael McLeod pulled out.
A debate between Yellowknife’s two mayoral candidates, scheduled as part of the same event, has also been dropped. “We didn’t feel an hour-long event was enough to constitute an evening,” said organizers.
September 30: NWT federal election candidates’ forum: what they said
October 1: NWT federal election candidates’ forum round two: what was said
Edge YK said McLeod’s cancellation was related to “issues with having the debate in a licensed establishment”.
Organizers added: “We would have been happy to consider a venue change but McLeod and his team gave no indication the location was an issue until after 5pm on Thursday, or two business days before the event was scheduled to take place.
“We aren’t committed to a location involving alcohol, but in an election season with a number of candidate events being held, we wanted to do something different to appeal to people who might not attend the other events, for whatever reason.
“We respect every candidate’s right to determine the rules around their engagement in a debate, but can’t respect someone agreeing to participate in an event, knowing all the details, and cancelling at the last moment.”
Two forums took place last week. One, hosted by Alternatives North, featured three of the four candidates with Roland missing. The other, hosted by the CBC, featured all four.
