Sault Ste. Marie NDP candidate says she's disappointed in no-show candidates at debates
CBC
The NDP candidate for Sault Ste. Marie says she wishes more candidates would show up for debates in the lead-up to the Feb. 27 provincial election.
Lisa Vezeau-Allen said she's missing interaction with other candidates.
"I want to have someone else I'm debating with," she said.
"I think that's really important. That also helps to show, in terms of candidates, who would be the appropriate choice."
Vezeau-Allen, a Sault Ste. Marie city councilor since 2018, is hoping to steal the district from the Progressive Conservatives as PC MPP Ross Romano retires from politics.
Romano has held the seat since 2017.
The PCs are running political staffer Chris Scott to replace Romano. The other candidates in the district are:
Debates that Vezeau-Allen has attended have turned into Q&A sessions because of a lack of other participants, she said.
She was also the only major party candidate to respond to CBC's request for an interview.
The PCs sent a statement via text message while the Ontario Liberal Party did not respond at all.
Asked what she made of the fact that Scott is not from the region and has neither attended debates nor granted media interviews, Vezeau-Allen said "that's something he needs to answer."
For her part, Vezeau-Allen said, the top election issues she keeps hearing about from people are health care, U.S. tariff threats, and the cost of living.
On health care, the NDP is proposing a northern command centre that would address issues in the north and help streamline referral processes and paperwork for physicians, she said.
It proposes helping families deal with the cost of living by providing a grocery rebate of up to $120 per month.
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The NDP candidate for Sault Ste. Marie says she wishes more candidates would show up for debates in the lead-up to the Feb. 27 provincial election.
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