Despite what seemed like an unwieldy number of candidates, the Oct. 9 all candidates forum gave each prospective mayor and councillor a chance to share their platform and answer at least one question from the crowd.
Absent from the forum were Cloud Byrd, candidate for mayor, and Sebastian Byrd, candidate for councillor, as well as prospective councillors Monika Schaefer and Heather Young-Leslie, each of whom had opening and closing statements read by Pat Wilson and Sue Cesco, respectively.
Of interest to the 150 people who filled the Jasper Activity Centre and the 50 people who watched the livestream, facilitated by the Fitzhugh and the Habitat for the Arts, were issues spanning from alternative revenue sources to improving the municipality’s relationship with Parks Canada.
With 17 candidates for council present, as well as two for mayor and two for school board trustee, each question posed by a community member was to address no more than three candidates, to ensure a variety of questions could be asked throughout the evening.
The first question—how can the municipality and Parks work more closely together—was addressed to Jack Templeton, candidate for councillor.
“In my experience,” he said, “often times these conflicts are caused more by confusion as to what exactly the responsibilities each party has. If you get an overlap of responsibilities, you get confusion.
“There’s too much overlap and not a clear delineation of who does what,” he said.
Following a number of other questions, Richard Ireland, the incumbent for mayor, came back to Templeton’s response, in an attempt to clear up what he believed to be a misconception.
“[The question] may have left the impression that there is a problem with the relationship between the municipality and Parks Canada,” he said, “and I want to go on record as saying there is no problem with that relationship.
“We work very well with Parks Canada and they with us. We respect that we have jurisdictional differences and issues to talk about, but I do not want to leave the impression that there is a problem with the relationship.”
Ireland’s response was followed by applause from the audience and, later, a response from the woman who asked the question.
“I’m very sorry, I think the way I put it was all misunderstood,” she said into the microphone. “The whole thing is, being new in town, every time I would want something done ... I just had no idea where to start.
“I’m not complaining at all. I love Jasper, but I’ve sure put in a lot of leg work back and forth,” she said, rousing laughter from the audience.
The next question, addressed to candidates for councillor, Rich Potter and Fred Kreiner, was whether the two men, both busy with volunteer responsibilities as well as full time jobs, have the time to devote to council.
Both men assured residents that, although busy, they are willing to scale back their participation in other organizations in order to make time.
Potter, who is in line to be the incoming president of the Jasper Rotary Club, said he is even prepared to turn down the position and pass it off to Greg Van Tighem, who is next in line.
Kreiner, who is the assistant principal at Jasper Junior/Senior High School and a football coach to the Glaciers, said, like most busy people, he is the kind of guy who gets things done.
“If you give something to do to the person who’s busiest, it’s most likely to get done because they’re the ones that don’t have time to fiddle around; they use their time more wisely. I think I’m one of those people,” he said.
A question addressed to incumbent Gilbert Wall, who has been very vocal about the impending need for a substantial tax increase to maintain the municipality’s existing services, was “what are other revenue sources other than increased taxation?”
“We really are in an interesting position in Jasper in that we have a stagnant tax base so there’s no growth and there’s no prospect for growth in that tax base, yet we’re in a position of having to fund all of the operations of the town,” responded Wall.
Wall said to maintain the services the community has now, either the tax base has to pay for it—and right now it is underpaying—or the municipality needs to be recognized and treated as a resort municipality by the province.
“It’s not a taxing issue,” said Wall, “it’s a funding issue and it’s the method that we fund tourism communities that are solely reliant on tourism—that’s where the problem is,” he said.
As a follow-up Chris Garnham asked that all the candidates who would support a tax increase of three per cent or more stand up.
As Wall and Paul Height rose to their feet, moderator Bert Journault said he felt the question was inappropriate. Wall then requested the microphone.
“It’s a bit of an unfair question obviously, because you have nothing tied to it, but it’s an important question in that for us to continue with the level of service that we have right now, three per cent is not going to cut it,” he said.
“I will stand here in front of all of you and say the tax increase for the same level of service will be well in excess of three per cent.”
Wall was received with applause, as was Height, who said, “we have to face reality. Inflation is going faster than three per cent. We’re not going to be behind that curve, we’re going to be in front of it.
“My suggestion is we watch our costs.”
A couple highlights from the forum:
Q: We have recently heard of some new thinking going on about funding as opposed to taxation for our community: is there any kind of that thinking for our educational needs?
Betsy DeClercq: “There’s been so much discussion about funding for our schools and basically what we’re advocating for right now is predictable, sustainable funding, because our schools do not know for sure from year to year what funding they’re going to receive. Enrolment goes up and goes down and so our funding goes up and it goes down with enrolments.
“We need viable funding for rural schools, so that is definitely something that we’re going to continue advocating for.”
Gerry Lettner: “In addition to predictable funding, I would say that adequate has to be in there as well.
“When we look at taxation, the province has stated that they want to make sure that they maintain a 32 per cent of the education budget coming from the property assessment. It’s not supposed to go up, but it will remain at 32 per cent of the provincial budget. That gets pooled and redistributed equally on a per-student basis throughout the province. That means the additional 68 per cent would come from revenue from the province and I don’t see that changing. I see those numbers being fairly firm.”
Q: Everybody talks about democracy and about representing everybody in town, what are you guys going to do to engage GenerationX and GenerationY?
Bob Covey: “This is a traditional type of democratic exercise and I think we know that young people aren’t necessarily following traditions, and I think we need to meet people where they’re at.
“It doesn’t need to be a community hall and fluorescent lights to get people engaged. We need to think creatively.”
Jeff Smith: “When you look at the town, the majority of it is seniors and kids, so being middle of the road, talking to a lot of seniors, and us being middle men, passing it on to the kids. It’s just a wicked circle of a great community.”
To watch video footage of the entire forum, including the candidates opening and closing statements, visit our website at fitzhugh.ca/live-stream. To catch up on all of our election coverage to date, visit fitzhugh.ca/election-talk.
Nicole Veerman
[email protected]
