Potential voters gathered at the Olds Royal Canadian Legion on April 17th hoping to learn more about the candidates running in the Ponoka-Didsbury constituency.
Unfortunately, they were only able to listen to forty percent of the candidates during Thursday night’s event.
The MVF Community Care Society hosted the election forum. Dan Harder with the Society served as the Moderator for the evening. Harder says “we had a good crowd. I didn’t count the numbers but probably what? 100-150 I’m guessing. We only had two participants. We had invited all of the candidates that are running in our constituency but we only had Larry Gratton from the People’s Party of Canada and Grant Abraham from the United Party of Canada and they answered our questions honestly and I think, for the most part, addressed what we had expected of them.”
He was disappointed as a result of not having all of the candidates in attendance, in spite of the invitation. Harder says “unfortunately, yeah, that was a bit frustrating for us.” When asked about constituents being eager to hear more from the candidates in the Ponoka-Didsbury riding prior to casting their vote, Harder says “definitely and that was exemplified in the crowd this evening – the good turnout we had, yes.”
The two candidates made opening and closing statements, plus they answered questions from Harder for a total time of about an hour. Topics they were quizzed on included equalization, immigration, post-nationalism, debt reduction, UN 2030, voter turnout, Alberta separating from Canada, central bank digital currency, a Liberal influx in Alberta cities, how to have Alberta’s voice heard in Ottawa, and more.
According to Elections Canada, the Ponoka-Didsbury constituency has a total of five official candidates who are on the confirmed list. It was issued on April 9th. In addition to Gratton and Abraham, Blaine Calkins of the Conservative Party of Canada, Logan Hooley of the New Democratic Party, and Zarnab Zafar (no affiliation) are also on the confirmed list. Zafar had previously been announced as the Liberal candidate when that party issued a nomination notice on April 1st. Other media sources had previously reported that election forums for this constituency which were slated to take place in Ponoka and Lacombe were cancelled by their respective Chambers of Commerce due to low confirmation numbers from the Ponoka-Didsbury candidates.
Election day is April 28th and advanced polling will take place from today (April 18th) through the 21st. More details can be found on the elections.ca website.
