Organizers cancelled an all-candidates debate in Campbell River, B.C. with little notice on Tuesday due to planned protest rallies at the venue.
The debate was supposed to feature Conservative candidate Aaron Gunn, Green candidate Jessica Wegg, NDP candidate Tanille Johnston, Liberal candidate Jennifer Lash, People’s Party candidate Paul MacKnight and an Independent candidate, Glen Staples.
But an hour and a half before the event at Tidemark Theatre in Campbell River in northern Vancouver Island, the event’s organizer — the Campbell River Chamber of Commerce — sent out a media release saying the event was cancelled.
While the chamber has not responded to interview requests from CBC News, candidates told CBC News that they were informed the cancellation was due to safety concerns and planned protests and counter-protests at the venue.
“After careful consultation with local authorities and event organizers, we have concluded that it is impossible to guarantee the event’s safety and orderly conduct under these circumstances,” reads a statement from event organizers posted on Gunn’s Facebook page.
The NDP, Liberal and Green candidates decided to have an impromptu event outside the theatre where they spoke to voters about what matters to them, while the Conservative candidate said he would knock on doors directly.
“Speaking for myself, I hadn’t had any safety concerns. We hadn’t received any any word that there was going to be anything to be worried about,” Wegg told CBC News.
Wegg said the number-one issue in the riding was the issue of affordability and housing, and that debates like Tuesday’s were important to ensure there isn’t further political polarization in the country.
“We’re hearing a lot about fears about what’s happening south of the border,” Wegg said. “We want that to not happen here.”
Lash, the Liberal candidate, called the debate cancellation a “disservice to our community.”
She said that she was hoping to use the debate to talk about issues such as salmon farms, specifically the federal government’s decision to close the province’s open-net salmon farms by 2029.
“We really let the community down when we didn’t put together the right transition package to support the community,” she said of the salmon farm decision. “And I’m willing to fight for it.”
For his part, Staples told CBC News that his number-one issue was Canada’s party and electoral system itself.
Tory candidate criticized over tweets
While a CBC News reporter in Campbell River observed a small demonstration outside the theatre on Tuesday, with around 20 First Nations Elders gathering in a circle to protest Gunn, she did not see any counter-protesters.
Conservative candidate Gunn has been criticized for his past tweets, with First Nations leaders accusing him of residential school denialism with the posts.
Gunn made posts on X between 2019 and 2021 denying that Indigenous people faced a genocide in Canada and that “residential schools were asked for by Indigenous bands.”
WARNING: This story contains details of experiences at residential schools.
The past tweets of the Conservative candidate in the North Island—Powell River riding have been making headlines for days. Aaron Gunn has been under fire for tweets about Canada’s residential school system, in which he said that the system did not constitute genocide. CBC’s Claire Palmer made the journey to the riding and talked to those defending Gunn, and others who say he’s got to go.
A campaign spokesperson told CBC News that “Aaron Gunn has been clear in recognizing the truly horrific events that transpired in residential schools, and any attempt to suggest otherwise is simply false.”
Gunn said on Facebook while he was disappointed with Tuesday’s cancellation, “this won’t slow us down.”
The NDP’s Johnston said that Gunn’s social media posts should not be the topic that matters most to North Island-Powell River voters.
“We should be spending our time talking about the the greater things like growing our economy and what that looks like,” she said.
“Expanding health care in our provinces, expanding our $10-a-day child-care program and the nuances that need to be brought forward with that, these types of amazing initiatives that are really going to help communities.”
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