Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Dec 01/99) - The candidate forums are all over.

The final meeting was held Nov. 25 at the Great Hall of the legislative assembly for those in Weledeh, Yellowknife Centre and Yellowknife South.

There were several audience questions despite only 37 minutes out of the two hours devoted to direct responses to questions.

Former city councillor Peggy Near asked for a yes or no response to whether the candidates would be in the house for all sessions short of duty travel, ill health or a family emergency.

All candidates agreed.

Near then asked for an assurance that the candidates would not shuck their responsibility of voting by abstaining.

Again, all agreed.

For the third consecutive night, Vi Beck asked candidates to comment on a recent court decision to let a man off from a violent attack because he was on pot.

"How will you ensure that women feel safe in their homes?" she asked.

Weledeh's NDP candidate Mark Heyck started the answers off by saying that for starters, instead of holding an election on Dec. 6, there should be a moment of silence in memory of the women killed at Montreal's ecole polytechnique.

Weledeh's Joe Handley asked why in so many cases, it is the victim who has to leave the home and not the perpetrator.

The other two Weledeh candidates, Roy Erasmus and Blake Rasmussen discussed the importance of education.

"Children need to understand what violence is, where it comes from and what to do about it," said Erasmus.

The format for the meeting came under attack for not having enough time devoted to audience questions.

"There was way too much time devoted to rhetoric and not enough to audience participation," said audience member Mary McCreadie.

McCreadie wanted to ask the candidates to identify one economic initiative that they would call environmentally sustainable, say what makes it sustainable and finally, how it is connected to health and education.

"One thing that really pisses me off is that there is this attitude about cutting red tape. It doesn't make sense to me when they say they want to preserve Yellowknife for their children. The red tape is regulations and laws to protect Yellowknife," McCreadie said after the forum.