SENS to hold all-candidate forum ahead of the provincial election

The Sustainable Environment Network Society (SENS) will host an event for people to learn about their local candidates in the upcoming provincial election.

The event, which is planned to go at the Towne Theatre on October 3, will see the candidates for the Vernon-Lumby and the Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream riding take to the stage to discuss their parties’ stances on a variety of topics.

“We will be sitting down, SENS directors, and we’ll be looking at a few topics that seem to suit the climate,” Julia Lissau, secretary treasurer of SENS, told Vernon Matters.

“So forestry, something to do with forestry; electrification; obviously climate change, the disasters and their connections; pesticides; water, water sheds, water quality and purity, possibly even connecting to our health and safety; agriculture; mitigation, in other words, lowering carbon and methane production; biodiversity; ecosystem health. I don’t know what questions we’ll select, we still as executives have to sit down and start saying ‘what kind of questions will we ask?’ so that it’s not a real trial for those who are candidates, but they are obviously boning up on an awful lot of things right now.”

There will be an opportunity for members of the public to submit questions for the candidates ahead of the forum through the SENS website and Facebook page, and there may also be an option for people to pose questions at the event, though planning for that was ongoing.

SENS will also distribute a questionnaire to the local candidates ahead of the forum.

“The questions that we will send out pre-forum are going to be answered before [September 28, the day when candidate nominations close], perhaps, and we would have those out on the Facebook page for SENS,” Lissau said, adding it would also be sent out in the SENS newsletter.

“We don’t know what questions we’re asking though. We may have four, five, six, seven questions for each candidate to answer, then we’ll collate them so [people] can read the questions and see what the answers are, then read the question and see what the answers are.”

SENS had previously held federal, provincial and civic all-candidate forums so the public can learn about their local candidates, though those events were held in the Vernon and District Performing Arts Centre.

Lissau said they plan to hold the forum in a similar way to those from past years, with all candidates given the opportunity to answer the questions and provided a minute each to do so, though added details on the process was still being discussed.

Previous SENS all-candidate forums had been live-streamed, though Lissau said they were still in the planning stage for that, adding they may just record the event and then share that online following the forum.

The event will be held just a few weeks ahead of the the October 19 general voting day for the provincial election. Lissau said it should be enough time to help voters learn about their candidates.

The B.C. Green Party and the Conservative Party fo B.C. had not announced their candidates for Vernon-Lumby as of time of publication. Lissau said SENS plans to go ahead with the forum even if those candidates are never named, but added if they are announced then they will be asked to fill out the pre-forum questionnaire and invited to the event on October 3.

She added the organization will also set up displays with each candidate’s responses to the questionnaire at the theatre so people can review them before going in and watching the forum.

The candidates confirmed for the local ridings as of time of publication were: