Wednesday night's all-candidates forum was summed up by CKPG's Dave Barry this way: "the ladies were ladies and the gentlemen were boys."
No truer words were spoken.
The first half of the forum featured the four candidates for Prince George-Valemount, with three-term Liberal MLA Shirley Bond and leading challenger Sherry Ogasawara of the NDP seated next to each other.
Bond and Ogasawara clearly hold different political philosophies but even their most pointed exchanges were polite and respectful.
To no one's surprise, every candidate directed their question at Bond, which was a mistake. It gave the veteran MLA large chunks of the forum to display her experience and her knowledge of the issues, while promoting both herself and the Liberal platform.
Also to no one's surprise, Bond and Ogasawara directed their questions at each other, providing the high points of the forum, as the two women engaged in short and spirited exchanges on health care for seniors and the future of the proposed UHNBC medical library under an NDP government.
Bond successfully rattled Ogasawara with her question, demanding to know if the library would be off the table under an NDP government. Ogasawara never answered the question as asked, preferring to give a general response that if there's a written deal in place to spend government dollars on a capital project, the NDP will honour it. No such deal is in place, however, for the medical library
"We won't tear up contracts," Ogasawara shot back but only dedicated provincial political watchers would have got her pointed reference to the Liberals tearing up the contracts for teachers that had been negotiated by the NDP before they left office.
Ogasawara challenged Bond hard on seniors, on the dollars front but then with a personal story about a man in need of care who hasn't bathed in two months.
"There's isn't a person sitting at the front of the room that thinks a senior not having a bath is appropriate," Bond answered with genuine emotion. "I've spent countless hours meeting with seniors and it isn't about one size fits all."
Conservative candidate Nathan Giede and Christian Heritage candidate Don Roberts both made efforts to grasp the audience's attention but were sidelined by the Bond-Ogasawara exchanges.
But they were the warmup act for the bare-knuckled brawl that followed.
NDP candidate Bobby Deepak fired shots at Mike Morris of the Liberals from the opening question and Morris took none of it lying down. Both men displayed their professional backgrounds well - Deepak as a labour lawyer and Morris as a retired police officer. With plenty of experience on how to stay calm in verbal confrontations but not give an inch, either, they put on a show for the audience, firing the one-liners and cutting each other off constantly.
Conservative candidate Terry Rysz and Green candidate Karen McDowell did their best to keep up but their lack of experience in heated verbal sparring showed. McDowell, in particular, tried to use the facts as her weapon but was brushed aside each time with quick comebacks, by Deepak in particular.
While Morris was factually correct to say that the West Coast belongs to Canada, not just B.C., when discussion centred around trade with Asia and the Northern Gateway pipeline, Deepak all but wrapped himself in the B.C. flag behind him, scoring some easy points with the audience with his "B.C. first" pledge.
The exchanges got so feisty at one point that moderator Tracy Summerville broke it up. The audience called on her another time to intervene but the candidates cooled down immediately, so she didn't have to.
On the Prince George-Valemount side, Ogasawara did well but Bond was the clear winner. On the Prince George-Mackenzie side, once the dust settled, Deepak emerged as the victor.
To make up your own mind on who won or lost, tune in to CKPG on Saturday night at 6 and 11 p.m. to see the Prince George-Valemount forum in its entirety and commercial-free. The Prince George-Mackenzie debate will air at the same times on Sunday.
