the all-candidates meeting is on right now. Channel 10.
Went to the PAC, good show, If Coons wasn’t such a gentleman he would have ripped Pond a new asshole.
When Pond came out with utter bullshit Coons methodically disassembled Ponds statements with facts , the only thing Pond didn’t take credit for was the sunny day.
The Libs were out in force lobbing softballs at Pond,Lisa Girbav did a great job.
Very few minds were changed.
I really wish I knew this woman was going to freak out, I would have gotten closer with the camera:
wow heated or what, thanks for the little clip!!!
It was definitely weird. Does anyone know who she is? Not that that changes anything… but everyone seemed to be asking the same question: “Who the heck is she?”
A few people have said this now, and I have to disagree. I don’t think anything she said was off the cuff–she obviously had answers written down for questions asked in various categories. It felt to me like she was reading straight out of the Green platform. I guess that in and of itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing–but whereas Mr Coons and Mr Pond were referring to their notes for specific dates, stats, and the like, Ms Girbav didn’t seem able to answer a question without her papers.
(And sorry for the double-post. Too tired to edit right now.)
Vote Quimby…
Ha-ha, whoa! That woman was really weird! Awesome. 
Kent Glowinski was the same when he ran for the Tories federally. He’s a bright guy but it was obvious he was robotically spewing out talking points. It was all tightly scripted, which is to be expected from someone so young entering an arena in which experience is a considerable advantage.
Refreshing to read your comment, Eccentric, as most people tend to give a good review to youth regardless of their performance, because they don’t want to seem mean - which I think actually does a disservice to them, not giving them truthful feedback and enough credit to take criticism.
It was ironic that the Liberal old-guard were trying to silence the flake, and it turns out she was a Herb-supporter!
Lisa was too scripted for my taste, butI thought the candidates handled themselves very well throughout the evening, especially after they got to respond to their opponents’ soft lobs from the audience.
In the end, all that matters is that you get off your ass and VOTE - if you don’t vote, you have no right to complain.
If a smarmy delivery with no content or total fabrication impresses you then Ponds your man.
Heh. I’m sorry but, as much as I like Gary and have known him for a long time, I have never seen him “methodically disassemble” anything - and certainly not verbally, as that is not his strong suit. Gary can make good points but he does it in a simple manner.
I also like the way supporters of both candidates claim they know supporters of the other party that are switching to their side. Sorry, guys, but that is such a transparent, common b.s. ploy to get people to think the tide is turning, one way or the other, that few people ever fall for it.
They knew she was a Herb supporter. She’d been cheering and wearing her button all night. But just because she supports their candidate doesn’t mean they support her when she decides to go against the format because she didn’t get her chance to attack Mr Coons.
I saw her holding her hand up, but I just thought she had to go pottie.
The “idiot Riley kid,” as you rudely put it, has his name on the Nechako ballot as the Green candidate, so I wouldn’t call him an NDPer. You know, just to be clear now.
Calling him an idiot certainly isn’t polite, but he was very cocky and rude when presenting his question. He could have said the same thing–even point out that Herb was part of the Council that allowed it to be built–without being a jerk.
On the issue itself, the idea that the gaming center has caused social problems is complete and utter nonsense. I’m sure there are a few cases where people are now addicted to gambling who weren’t before, but most gambling addicts we have in this town have excellent access to gambling without going to Chances. Keno, online poker, pull tabs, scratch and win tickets–whatever. Funny enough, none of the gambling outlets I just mentioned are obligated to watch out for problem gamblers, like staff at Chances are. You don’t see phone numbers for addiction counselling beside the Keno board.
What does Riley propose? Close the casino? Never have allowed it to open in the first place? I suppose his solution for alcoholism would be to close the BC Liquor Store…
Chances employs many Rupertites. The owners have proved themselves to be generous, community minded individuals. It provides a good source of adult entertainment. Are there people who are unable to gamble responsibly? Yea. Are there addicts? Yea. I think, though, the good outweighs the bad.
first off I agree with most of what you say eccentric, and Chances does employ many Rupert people, and every 4 to 6 months there is a turn over of employee’s, why is that?
If I was a gambling man I would swear they get rid of people just before they get their union card.
I have no problem with Chances being in town, people have the option to attend or not if they wish and we really shouldn’t be running around dictating what they can or can’t do.
However, if that is the best that the former Mayor can do to outline how the economy benefited from his stewardship then his campaign is in trouble I would think.
The 95 jobs that chances provides are nothing to sneeze at, but for the most part they are part time positions I would imagine, and there does seem to be a rather high turnover rate there for whatever reason.
Part time, on call or seasonal work doesn’t provide for a stable base of income that provides for your car purchases, home purchases or major furniture and appliance purchases, those jobs basically provide for the basics and normally requrie the need to work at two or three other similar type jobs to cobble together a living wage.
The jobs created by Chances dont come anywhere near the number of jobs that have been lost by the downturns in the fishing and forestry economies that once provided for the base of the economy in this community. There wasn’t much in the way of economic development in the community over the last ten years or so, we heard of a lot of "tire kickers’ and the mayor was even doing that again on Wednesday with his comments about Deutsche Bank et al looking at Rupert, but in the end there is the need to “show us the money” as they say.
Besides the questionable economic impact aspect of those gaming centre jobs there is still the unfullfilled promise to ensure that proper addictions assistance was in place when the gaming centre opened. Posting help line numbers and such is a sign of compliance with the basic requirements but certainly not part of a larger solution.
The last council debated that addicitions assistance issue many times but I don’t believe that there was ever any action taken that council and the Mayor can point to as a great achievement on that one. In fact I think that the bulk of the current debate over the fate of the old Acropolis is tied into the need for such a centre.
The former Mayor opens up a topic that won’t be of benefit to his campaign if people begin to think about past promises on the gaming centre and how those promises have yet to still materialize.
Your comments on both gambling addiction and alcoholism don’t offer up much of a solution, just a smarmy retort that suggests that those that are concerned on those issues just dont get it. Trying to score political points on important social issues and those that are affected by them doesn’t help your candidate all that much either by the way .
I’m not sure what he proposes, but considering the both the local government and the provincial Liberal one is raking in revenue from the casino, the “responsible” thing would be to use some of that money to facilitate gambling addiction services to help an extremely vulnerable demographic that exists in this community. Though, wait a minute, that would make quite the dent in that revenue. Hmm. That’s a problem. We don’t actually want people to stop throwing their money away, do we? And yes, I’m sure the good of your average Graham Street debutante being able to go out to Chances for an expensive meal far outweighs the bad of someone blowing their entire child tax benefit cheque on those pathetic push-button vlts.
Posted this on another thread. Might be more appropriate here.
The whole article is here. I picked out some highlights.
physorg.com/news159112783.html
Legalized gambling is weighing down a global economy already mired in its deepest downturn since the Great Depression, according to a new collection of research that renews decades-old calls to outlaw betting.
The United States International Gambling Report series says casinos siphon money away from economies struggling to rebound, and saddle taxpayers with hefty, ongoing costs to battle crime and other social problems that gambling spawns.
A sweeping ban would put money lost to gambling back into the traditional consumer economy, where an economic “multiplier effect” triples its impact.
Despite job-creation claims by the gambling industry, 90 percent of gambling revenue goes into slot machines, which create no new employment.
Kindt says the findings show that the U.S. and other countries should finally heed calls that have sounded for more than a decade to outlaw gambling, which would prime the global economic pump by diverting wasted spending.
Like the Podunkian, I am not going to stop people from doing what they are doing. But as much as 95 jobs exist at Chances, the money that is spent there is not going into other businesses in town. I am guessing that at best it has a neutral affect on our economy with the added bonus of more addicts.