Moose Jaw Times-Herald: Lisa's Corner: Good turnout for elections forum

By Lisa Goudy

I was pleased to see the Centennial Auditorium nearly full for the Kinsmen all-candidates election forum on Wednesday night.

For the sake of democracy, I was even more pleased that people’s questions for the candidates lasted longer than each of the candidates’ prepared speeches. The whole event lasted for nearly three hours.
There are 19 candidates for council and two for mayor and all were in attendance with the exception of council candidate Jack Smith, whose mother recently had a heart attack. The mayoral candidates were given five minutes each and council candidates were given three minutes. Those speeches took about an hour and the Q&A session took almost two hours.

It was wonderful to see so many people come out and engage in conversation with the potential candidates who will play a large role in running the city for the next four years. Everyone posed valid questions and some people even grilled a few of the incumbents running, which is an important part of accountability.

But perhaps what impressed me most was the attendance of a high school class at the forum, along with their teacher. While their attendance was part of a class assignment, I believe young people being there is the best thing that could’ve happened.

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