Shawn Petriw, a former Prince George resident who ran for city council once but finished well behind the eventual winners, was on Facebook Wednesday night, wanting to know who "won" the first mayoral debate between Don Zurowski and Lyn Hall. He was particularly hoping for either me or Wil Fundal from CBC Radio One to give him some inside intel.
Fundal responded quickly and diplomatically:
"I think the winners are the people who showed up (there or online), asked questions, and were informed by what was said by the two candidates," he wrote. "Isn't one of the reasons we do this is to encourage people to become informed voters?"
Anyone who knows Petriw knows that he prefers brutal honesty over delicate diplomacy.
"I was hoping for some analysis/opinion of the candidates," he responded.
Fundal didn't respond again, but Greg Jonuk, a man who knows a few things about debates as a longtime Toastmaster, chimed in.
"It was very respectful, with no upper cuts thrown against each other," Jonuk said, accurately summarizing the entire evening. He then wrote an eloquent and equally accurate assessment of Wednesday's forum at the Prince George Public Library:
"My take on who to vote for is that each of these candidates are steady, not spectacular and hopefully will be effective in wrangling a team out of the 8 other councillors. That is the trick here, for council to be effective it has to work together and that is difficult to vote in because you also want diversity and that seems to juxtapose harmony. Back to point, leadership style is key in the selection of this mayor. Lyn Hall seems to be a participatory leader and Don Z seems to have a more conventional and traditional approach. These are superficial impressions, only. I don't know how they operate behind the scenes in leading diverse teams to a common goal. I also don't know how they might situationally adapt their leadership style to support the individual councillors or the team as it moves thought different stages of development."
Andrew Kurjata, the current product of Daybreak North on CBC Radio One (CBC co-hosted the forum), supported Jonuk's comments.
"Putting aside whether these things have "winners" at all, neither candidate outperformed the other. Both are experienced, so they are professional, but I also noticed that neither was given to making the big promises that people new to the game will make," he wrote. "They both tempered their visions with the realities of how much (or little) power a municipal government has compared with the provincial and feds, how much (or little) power a single mayor has when they are one vote among nine, and so on and so forth. I'm not placing any bets yet, far too close to call."
So, Shawn, to answer your Facebook query, I'm with those guys.
In hockey terms, there was some pushing and shoving but nobody dropped the gloves. It's only the first period, however, and there's a lot of campaigning left to do. We could see a much different performance at the next mayoral forum just nine days before the election. It's set for 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 6 in the Canfor Theatre at UNBC. The forum is sponsored by the Citizen, CKPG, UNBC and the Prince George Chamber of Commerce and will be moderated by UNBC political science prof Tracy Summerville.
That forum will feature more fireworks as the candidates seek to solidify their support and scoop up the remaining undecideds.
That's the one to watch, Shawn.
