Unfortunately, after first confirming their attendance, Robert George (who confirmed via e-mail at 3:12 a.m. on Wednesday, September 24, and offered to pay any additional share of costs should another candidate not show up) and Sal Sorrento (who confirmed via e-mail at 9:11 a.m. on Saturday, September 20) have now declined attending.
At 2:29 p.m. this afternoon, I received an e-mail from Sal Sorrento indicating he would not be attending the Meet the Candidates Night on October 7. This e-mail was followed by one from Robert George at 4:54 p.m. today and then Mike Britton at 4:56 p.m.
As Robert George made his reasons for declining the invitation very public, I will share them here.
Similarly, Mike Britton has cited concerns of bias, as he is not comfortable with the evening be co-ordinated by one candidate, and he was also (when I spoke with him on Monday night) uncertain of the moderator (who is also moderating the St. Patrick's Ward and Mayoral debates).
In each of my campaigns, I have made clear how strongly I feel about the need to communicate with the public. I continue to stand by that.
Further, as I indicated to my fellow candidates, in the past, it has fallen to the St. George's Ward candidates to organize these events, as we are currently without a community group to do it for us. In 2010, I reached out to the other candidates about arranging an event and we put on a debate.
This time around, I offered a debate as a possibility, but - with eight candidates - it didn't make a lot of sense time-wise, so I also suggested an evening where we would each speak for five minutes about ourselves and then go to our individual tables to speak one-on-one with attendees.
Much to my disappointment, three of the candidates do not feel they can participate in this event.
Elections do funny things to people, I guess. To a small degree, I understand some of the candidates' hesitation to attend the event. However, it is nothing that couldn't have been sorted out with a reasonable discussion.
I firmly believe that the format I have suggested makes sense for both the candidates and the attendees. People want to hear us talk about why we think they should vote for us. They don't want to hear us talk about why we think they should not vote for someone else.
The good news, though, is that the event will still happen. The Walker's Creek Neighbourhood Association - who I reached out to on Monday night and who is sponsoring the Grantham Ward event - has agreed to sponsor an event for St. George's Ward as well. John Kedzierski has confirmed his attendance, and I am awaiting word from Dave Key, Andrew Muehlenbeck, and Tony Tullo.
Particularly with the high density of apartment buildings in the ward, we might have more reason than any other ward to gather in one place so that people (who we can't, otherwise, easily get to) can come to us.
There are candidates running in this election and in this ward who feel that it is very important to give voters every chance they can to communicate with them.
As always, if you have any comments or questions, please don't hesitate to share them here to get in touch with me:
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