KAMLOOPS — In what was advertised as a slugfest between mayoral candidates Ken Christian and William Turnbull was anything but on Monday night at Thompson Rivers University.
However, the pervasive issues of snow clearing, affordability, and homelessness were among the questions asked to both.
“It’s on everyone’s mind, what to do about this,” noted Turnbull. “We’ve heard housing first, we’re getting tired of that. We are getting compassion-fatigue. People are being attacked.”
Christian added his view on homelessness is “you can’t cure poverty, so you have to start with providing a roof over people’s head. That’s a step towards wellness.”
The TRU Grand Hall offered standing room only with a packed house of interested Kamloops residents. Along the lines of affordability, a few audience members suggested and asked about the city giving builders incentives to construct secondary suites needed to ease the rental market.
“Building and looking at development of mid-level, entry-level homes for families like duplexes and fourplexes would go a long way to freeing up some of the market for some of the more affordable suites,” said council candidate Sadie Hunter.
Fellow council candidate Dale Bass thinks “we should be developing relationships with developers, so when they’re planning a large building, let’s say a 40-unit building, a portion of them are affordable housing.”
With cannabis becoming legal on Wednesday, a couple questions were asked to the mayoral and council candidates about pot. In particular, Christian and Turnbull were asked about how City Hall will deal with people smoking marijuana in public spaces.
“Is there going to be more by-law enforcement officers by next Wednesday? No, we’re not going to do that,” said Christian. “I don’t believe in solving problems that we don’t have yet. Smoking is not allowed at Music in the Park and the smoking of cannabis would not be allowed at Music in the Park as well.”
Turnbull responded, “Smoking irritates me in the park and it’s not allowed. I don’t feel comfortable going up to somebody and saying, ‘Hey, could you not smoke?’ I don’t see that going well, so it would be nice to see by-law a little more often.”
One of the groups of council candidates were questioned about medical cannabis, which will not be availble in retail locations come Wednesday, and they all agreed the federal government dropped the ball in rolling out recreational marijuana first.
“We’re not ready for it. There are too many unanswered questions,” noted council candidate Denis Walsh. “I’m hoping it will work out, but it looks like the pharmacies will get the medical stuff, but how long that’s going to take, I don’t understand why it’s taking so long. I think they should’ve done medical first.”
The audience members came away more informed and ready to vote for their mayor and eight councillors on Saturday with a final advanced voting date set for Wednesday from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Heritage House at Riverside Park.
