May 5 is drawing closer, and Alberta provincial election hopefuls are entering the home stretch. In Lac La Biche, candidates for the Lac La Biche–St. Paul–Two Hills constituency will have a chance to debate their platforms head-to-head at a Lac La Biche Post and Chamber of Commerce organized debate tonight, April 28, at 7 p.m. at Portage College.
May 5 is drawing closer, and Alberta provincial election hopefuls are entering the home stretch. In Lac La Biche, candidates for the Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills constituency will have a chance to debate their platforms head-to-head at a Lac La Biche Post and Chamber of Commerce organized debate tonight, April 28, at 7 p.m. at Portage College.
The Lac La Biche event is one of three planned for the week with debates in St. Paul and Elk Point held during the final week of campaigning.
Progressive Con-servative candidate Darrell Younghans, Wildrose candidate David Hanson and Green candidate Brian Deheer are confirmed to attend tonight’ s (April 28) debtate in Lac La Biche. NDP candidate Catherine Harder has been invited to attend, but has not yet confirmed.
David Hanson has never been in a formal debate before, but the Wildrose candidate for Lac La Biche - St. Paul - Two Hills is excited to see what he’ s got.
Hanson will be one of candidates participating in the April 28 forum at Portage College, along with Progressive Conservative candidate Darrell Young-hans and the Green Party’ s Brian Deheer. He’ s hoping to set himself apart from his opponents and make an impression on voters in this riding. He said he’ s going to try and keep the conversation focused on the new taxes imposed by the Progressive Conservative budget, but will also be making a point to talk about regional healthcare issues and Highway 881.
“The election was called on that budget, so we have to stick to the 59 taxes that are in that budget and how they’ re going to affect Albertans,” he said. “Healthcare comes up at just about every door I knock on, so that’ s definitely an issue there, and 881 will probably be an issue up in the Lac La Biche Area.”
Despite not having any experience with public forums, Hanson said his past work experience in the oil and construction industries, which involved plenty of contract discussions and negotiating, lends itself well to debating.
“If you consider construction and contract meeting debating, which it can be quite a bit, then I’ ve got lots of experience that way,” he said, but admitted that he might be out of his element if the conversation strays too far from election issues. “If they try to get sidetracked on issues that are not election issues, maybe I wont be prepared for it, I don’ t know.”
Even though he lacks experience, Hanson is confident in his ability to make the points he needs to, and said he is excited to take the stage on April 28 against his political opponents. He said it’ s going to be an interesting experience for him.
“It’ s going to be interesting. I think we’ re well prepared and we’ ve got a really good platform,” he said. “I wouldn’ t want to be one of the other guys.”
PC candidate Darrell Younghans says he’ s prepared for this week’ s debates, because he’ s had plenty of experience debating in races for the St. Paul school board - which he spent 12 years serving on.
“It was rapid fire,” he said of the school board debates he’ s participated in. “You stay to the positive as much as you could, and some stuff you had to defend. But you still kept it positive instead of, not slamming the other guy.”
He says he’ ll take a similar strategy to the Lac La Biche debate on April 28. He’ ll try to stay positive, focusing on what his party plans to do if elected.
He’ s already met two of his opponents - he had a brief chat with Green Party candidate Brian Deheer at the constituency’ s all-candidates meeting, and has encountered Wildrose candidate David Hanson multiple times along the campaign trail. Hanson and Younghans even spent some time together in the charity “penalty box” at the Portage College Sports and Education Dinner in Lac La Biche.
“I got in [the penalty box] first,” Younghans said. “We chatted a bit, but everyone wanted to take pictures...then they said get out, the time was done already, so we never had a lot of chance to even talk,” he said.
As for strategy on policy points, Younghans says he hasn’ t really thought about it yet. But he says he will likely bring up education issues, as well as his contention that the Wildrose platform isn’ t fully costed in his opinion.
In the meantime, he’ ll be spending his days criss-crossing the constituency in order to campaign and meet with voters.
“It’ s a pretty big riding, and you spend so much time in vehicles. There’ sa lot of voters over a big area - basically, it’ s welcome to rural Alberta,” he said. “It’ s more enjoyable just to meet with constituents, but sometimes you’ ve gotta go from one place to another...It’ s difficult to try and reach everybody in the constituency in 28 days, and we’ re just trying the best we can.”
Green Party candidate Brian Deheer is hoping to make sure what he feels is an over-reliance on oil and gas in Alberta’ s economy is discussed in the debate.
“All our eggs are in one basket,” Deheer said, adding he is no stranger to political exchanges, either - he ran as a federal Green candidate in the Fort McMurray-Athabasca by-election in 2014.
While he won’ t have much time to canvass door-to-door, he feels his debate appearances will be the most important part of campaigning.
The Lac La Biche debate for the Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills constituency, presented by the Lac La Biche Post, begins at 7:00 p.m. on April 28, in the McGrane Theatre at Portage College. If you can’ t attend, our reporters will be providing live coverage of the debate using the #llbdebate Twitter hashtag. Live coverage will also available on the laclabichepost.com Web site.
