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Your Week Weekly k l y CClover l o ver Valley Newspaper October 14, 2015 ❖ www.CloverdaleReporter.com ❖ Treeland Realty
Few undecided at election debate Crime, transit, jobs and health identified as priorities
By Dan Ferguson What may be the final all-candidates debate in the Cloverdale-Langley City riding drew more than two hundred people to the Kwantlen Polytechnic University campus in Langley City last Wednesday. It was the second debate in less than eight hours for the three hopefuls who showed up for the event, Conservative Dean Drysdale, New Democrat Rebecca Smith and Liberal John Aldag. A fourth candidate, Green representative Scott Anderson, was again a no-show, something the moderator, Greater Langley Chamber of Commerce president Scott Johnston, did not allow to pass without comment. “The next speaker is Scott Anderson of the Green Party,” Johnston said during the opening remarks. “Does he have anything to say? I guess not.” [Editor’s note: a representative of
Anderson’s campaign has told The Reporter the Green Party candidate has been ill recently and was unable to attend both all-candidates meetings on Oct. 7.] With less than two weeks to go in the federal election, there didn’t seem to be many undecided voters in the room. The three candidates each had their own cheering section, all roughly the same size and volume. Many of the written questions from the audience reflected that, with submissions giving the Conservative a chance to talk about his party’s policy on terrorism, allowing the NDP hopeful to discuss the party record on health care and permitting the Liberal to argue for deficit spending at a time of low interest rates. When it came to local issues, all three candidates were stumped by a question about the fate of José Figueroa, the Langley
man who has been living in a Walnut Grove church where he sought sanctuary to avoid deportation. Drysdale declined to comment, saying “I’d have to know more about it. So did Smith, who said “unfortunately, I
don’t know the full details.” Aldag said he only knew that Figueroa has “been in Walnut Grove” and while he declined to comment on that specific case, said
issues of concern to seniors, including health care, housing and pensions, with the issue of veterans generating the most heat. The New Democrats’ Smith and the Liberals’ Aldag attacked the Conservative record on veterans, with Smith accusing the Harper government of “showing no respect” by cutting services and benefits and Aldag saying “as a Canadian, I was frankly embarrassed and ashamed” that the Conservatives were fighting veterans in court over their benefits.
Both said the government should do more to help returning soldiers cope with the psychological aftermath of combat. That drew an energetic counter-attack by the Conservatives’ Drysdale, who said he has 35 years in the military and “many of the people wrestling with these issues are friends of mine.” Drysdale lashed out at the opposition parties as “hypocritical” for complaining about how the government treats soldiers when
they have treated the armed forces with “neglect and scorn.” He criticized the Liberals for failing to properly equip the armed forced when they were in government and reserved his strongest language for the New Democrats. “The NDP has never found anything in their lives worth fighting for,” Drysdale said. “We have fought for Canadians over and over and over again,” Smith responded.
JOHN FERGUSON / BLACK PRESS
Cloverdale-Langley City candidates Rebecca Smith (NDP), John Aldag (L), and Dean Drysdale (C), take questions at the first of two federal election forums Oct. 7. Scott Anderson (Green) was too ill to attend.
See PIPELINE / Page 6
Candidates court seniors vote at forum By Dan Ferguson Three of the four candidates running in the newly-created Cloverdale-Langley City riding made their case to an audience of 120 people, most of them seniors, at the Langley Seniors Resource Centre Oct. 7. Conservative Dean Drysdale, New Democrat Rebecca Smith and Liberal John Aldag spent two hours taking questions. Green candidate Scott Anderson was a no-show. Most of the questions centered on national
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